18 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



spectacle, every space on deck gleaming with silvery Herrings. 

 Her skipper estimated his catch at 280 crans, equal to 280,000 

 Herrings, and this is the heaviest haul of which we have ever 

 heard. There have been several big shots this season, but the 

 biggest hitherto had been 220 crans. The ' Benison ' took her 

 enormous catch from sixty-seven nets and had to let four nets go. 

 This is a remarkable take from such a number of nets, as all 

 fishermen will recognise. The entire catch was sold to one buyer 

 at a price that worked out at nearly .£600. The ' Benison ' is a 

 sailing-boat, which makes the big haul the more wonderful, but 

 she had been fitted with a paraffin motor." 



The last remark, with regard to the additional " motive " 

 power, applies pretty well to all the Scotch sailing-craft fishing 

 from the port. This addition makes them independent of wind 

 and tide, and steam-tugs, adding at a comparatively small outlay 

 to the catching power of the individual vessel, as well as an 

 improved quality to the catches. 



Bough weather broke into the fishing at the height of the 

 season, so that the boats were often kept in harbour when they 

 otherwise would have been at work ; however, the majority of 

 the catches sold at remarkably high prices, and many boats 

 made a most remarkable voyage. The heavy gale of the 13th, 

 coming suddenly on the fishing-grounds, played havoc with nets, 

 some of the boats losing several. Only three boats brought in 

 fish ; one, the Peterhead drifter ' Grateful,' had fifty crans of fish, 

 which sold as high as £6 lis. per cran. Ten crans are equal to 

 a " last." 



The queerest catch of all was reported to me by a fisherman, 

 " in the know," that " somewhere " in the North Sea, when the 

 nets were hauled by his drifter, up came a German submarine 

 with them covered with " lint " (nets). It is perhaps needless 

 to state, he assured me, that the naval authorities . . . since 

 which that particular cetacean-like intruder has troubled us no 

 more ! 



The following statistics briefly summarise the fishing for the 

 past three years : 



1915. 

 Boats fishing out of Yarmouth . . 185 drifters. 

 Number of crans landed . . . 120,122 crans. 



