OPENING ADDRESS. 9 
ies. There are certainly both Crabs and Lobsters in the 
neighbourhood both of the Great and Little Orme but no 
attempt is made to get them, though there is a market 
for them close at hand in the various watering places along 
the coast. Holdsworth (Deep Sea Fishing and Fishing 
Boats, 1874, p. 183) says ‘“‘ The Welsh Fisheries, so far as 
they depend on the native population, are quite unimpor- 
tant except with respect to oysters. There are a few 
large trawlers at Carnarvon and Tenby; but the Tenby 
eround and, as we have already mentioned, Carnarvon 
and Cardigan Bays are principally fished by trawlers from 
English stations. Line fishing and a little drifting are 
carried on along the coast, but the boats in use are 
generally small, and the supply of fish is barely sufficient 
for local demands. The lazy methods of fishing with weirs 
and set nets for herrings and chance fish are adopted in 
some places with occasional success; but apart from what 
may be a question as to the abundance or scarcity of fish 
on the Welsh coast generally, the great development of 
the mining and quarrying industries in the principality 
will always be likely to interfere with much local attention 
being given to a systematic prosecution of the Sea 
Fisheries with their attendant uncertainties.” Mr. 
Holdsworth, gives a list of the fishing boats on the Welsh 
coast, from which it appears that in 1872, there were 14 
first class, 115 second class, and 36 third class boats in 
Carnarvon, but there does not appear to have been a 
single boat—indeed he does not mention a port between 
Carnarvon and Aberystwith—in Merionethshire. Assum- 
ing this to be the case now (and I suspect there is less 
rather than more fishing along the Welsh coast now than 
in 1872), it seems hard that Merionethshire should be 
called upon, as it has been, to pay a considerable sum 
towards the expenses of the Welsh Fisheries Board. It 
