56 



Appendices of Fifth Annual Report 



chiefly of sand, but towards the north and south sand gives place to rock. 

 The fauna resembles that found at St Andrews, but although flatfish are 

 relatively plentiful, whiting are far more abundant. As at St Andrews 

 the water is often for days in great commotion owing to easterly gales ; 

 while the gales last, the fish seem here, as elsewhere, to seek shelter in deep 

 water, hence on several occasions the trawl in Aberdeen Bay only succeeded 

 in capturing a few small fish. As already mentioned, owing to the 

 impossibility of collecting valuable statistics of the fish caught in this area, 

 and to the uncertain results obtained by the ' Garland,' we recommended 

 that in the meantime experiments in Aberdeen Bay should be suspended. 



The Garland when at work trawled over six stations, four of them 

 within, and one without the closed waters. 



The first Station I. extends from a point one and a half miles off the 

 mouth of the Don to a point the same distance S.E. of Hare's Cairn, the 

 greatest depth is twelve fathoms. Stations II. and III. extend, from 

 Hare's Cairn in a similar direction towards the boundary line, the greatest 

 depth is 16 fathoms. Station IV. runs from a point off Belhelvie Coastguard 

 Station towards Heachley Head ; the greatest depth is eleven fathoms. 

 Station V. extends from near the mouth of the Ythan to end at the 

 boundary line opposite Old Slains Castle ; it has a uniform depth of eight 

 fathoms. Station VI. runs for a distance of three miles parallel to, but 

 beyond the boundary line ; the greatest depth is eighteen fathoms. By 

 referring to Table B, page 81, the nature of the takes of the ' Garland ' at the 

 above stations will be at once understood. They will be seen to differ from 

 the takes in St Andrews Bay in the large number of whitings and gurnards. 

 The flatfish include plaice, dabs, flounders and turbot, the round fish 

 include whiting, gurnards ; haddock, cod (chiefly young), hake, and ling. 



Statistics. 



Statistics, it is often said, can be made to prove anything. If there is a 

 difficulty in collecting reliable statistics of ordinary imports and exports, 

 still more difficult is it to collect trustworthy statistics of the fish landed 

 at the various fishing stations around the coast. This difficulty all nations 

 are familiar with, and certainly no country has hitherto succeeded so well 

 as Scotland in collecting fishery statistics ; but unfortunately until recently 

 we were contented with recording the quantities of fish cured, no atten- 

 tion having been paid to the fish used fresh. 



While the total quantity of fish captured around the coast throughout 

 the year has a certain national interest (in as far as it enables us to 

 estimate in a general way the value of our fisheries), it has no scientific 

 value. Statistics, to be of any real use now or in the future, must show, 

 not only the quantity of fish caught at any given time, but also, as 

 accurately as possible, the place where they were captured, the number 

 of boats fishing, the bait used, the size of the boats, state of the weather, 

 condition of the fish, &c. Hitherto, we are not aware of any attempt 

 having been made on a large scale to collect statistics on the above lines. 

 In order to obtain complete and accurate statistics it would be necessary 

 for each boat around the coast to keep a day book, indicating not only 

 the fish captured, but also the ground fished over, the state of the weather, 

 value of the fish, &c. An experiment in this direction we have recently 

 made. Some forty fishermen were good enough to consent to fill up books 

 provided for the purpose, and return them once each month to be checked 

 and copied. The takes of several boats fishing on the same ground year 

 after year might be extremely valuable, and there is no reason why each 

 boat should not keep a careful record of her takes ; were this done, many 



