208 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the high averages of captures (for last season's work had been 

 done in the warmer months), this Committee recommended the 

 closure of the Firth of Clyde, and the territorial waters between 

 Red Head and Kinnaird Head, and they were closed in 1899, 

 because "they were satisfied that within the area to which this 

 bye-law applies (viz. between Red Head and Kinnaird Head) 

 beam-trawling as a mode of fishing is injurious to the sea- 

 fishings." The Herring Fishery Act of the same year (1899) 

 was the signal for closing the whole of the Scottish waters 

 within the territorial limit. Still further closures occurred in 

 1890, when the Moray Firth from the Ord of Caithness to Craig- 

 head was shut against trawlers, the primary object, it was stated 

 by the Board, being to prevent the capture by trawlers of imma- 

 ture fish, which exist in large numbers in the area closed.* The 

 entire Moray Firth, again, was closed in November, 1902 — (1) 

 "to protect the fishes on their spawning-grounds (e.g. Smith 

 Bank), and to ascertain the extent to which such measures are 

 likely to be beneficial to the fish supply " ; and (2) " in view of 

 the repeated petitions from the line fishermen in the Moray 

 Firth, and from a belief that trawling was really a source of 

 injury to the fisheries there."! 



Whatever basis, social or political, this action of the Scotch 

 Board (and the Scotch Secretary) may have had, it cannot be 

 said that it rested on a reliable scientific foundation. The sup- 

 posed protection of the spawning areas in the Moray Firth was 

 and is unnecessary, either in regard to the adults or their float- 

 ing eggs and young. The spawning fishes — both round and flat 

 — occur beyond the closed area of the Firth, as well as within it, 

 for fishes respect no imaginary lines, and between them place the 

 safety of the food-fishes beyond question. Lately much promi- 

 nence has been given to the influence of the offshore on the in- 

 shore areas, as if such were a new feature, but this was clearly 

 pointed out in the scientific Trawling Report of 1884, and, when 

 studied, will give little countenance to the closure of Moray Firth 

 on scientific grounds. Besides, no report of the scientific results 

 gained by the closure of this area has yet been placed before the 

 public, unless it be the following! : — " The quantity of fishes 



* Ninth Ann. Kept. S. F. B., p. si. (for 1890). 1891. 



+ Eleventh Ann. Rept. (for 1892), p. xlix. 1893. 



I Eighteenth Ann. Rept. S. F. B., part iii. p. 7 (for 1899). 1900. 



