210 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



should be extended, and that an English Sea Fishery Board should 

 be established — besides other and minor recommendations. 



It is important to bear in mind, however, that a considerable 

 part of the scientific evidence was founded on the statistics of 

 scientific trawling as furnished by the Scotch Fishery Board. 

 Now, as will by-and-by be shown, these data were not reliable. 

 The faulty method of handling them had led to the view that the 

 flat-fishes were decreasing. 



The search of the ' Garland ' along certain specified lines in 

 the closed areas, and in the sea immediately beyond, for the long 

 period of ten years can only be briefly dealt with here. It has 

 been exhaustively studied elsewhere, and in a similar manner to 

 the original trawling experiments in 1884, with the result that 

 this costly but interesting scientific work showed that there was 

 no striking increase in the fishes of the closed areas, but, on the 

 contrary, that the fish-fauna stood at the end very much as at 

 the beginning. It is true the Scotch Board considered, as 

 already indicated, that there was a decrease of fiat-fishes (espe- 

 cially Plaice), caused, it was thought, by the destruction of the 

 spawning Plaice and other forms by trawlers outside the closed 

 areas, but it has been shown that this arose from a misappre- 

 hension. The Board, indeed, contrasted the first five years' 

 work — in which the trawling was done in a larger proportion of 

 warm months — with that of the second five years, in which the 

 trawling was done in a larger proportion of cold months. The 

 conclusions arrived at were equally erroneous with the earlier 

 notion that a great increase of fishes had occurred in the closed 

 areas, but it strengthened the Board's supposition that the de- 

 crease in flat-fishes was due to the destruction of the spawning 

 fishes beyond the limit. This view, moreover, formed an 

 explanation and a justification for the closure of such an area 

 as the Moray Firth. Long observation, however, has shown 

 how futile such imaginary protection is in so small a bay as 

 St. Andrews. How much more futile in the case of the vast area 

 of the Moray Firth. 



The experiments of the ' Garland ' in the closed areas, and 

 continuous observation in St. Andrews Bay and elsewhere — viz. 

 on both sides of Britain from Shetland to the Channel Islands — 

 in everything pertaining to marine life, have gradually formed 



