of the Fishery Board; for Scotland. 



7 



of marketable size were exceedingly scarce, the total catch of these 

 being under twenty boxes for all the trips together, and more than 

 half of them were obtained in February ; in September they 

 totalled five boxes, and in November a box and a half. 



On the other hand, immense shoals of young haddocks, under 

 two years of age, were present in the bays in autumn, from which 

 they were absent in the spring, and by far the greater part of those 

 taken were thrown overboard as unmarketable. 



Some of the hauls may be referred to as showing the enormous 

 destructive power possessed by the modern otter-trawl when 

 employed in shallow bays at certain seasons. In six hauls in the 

 Dornoch Firth at the end of September, the duration of the actual 

 fishing being 23f hours, 25,563 fishes were caught, and of these, 

 18,809, or 73^ per cent., were thrown overboard as unmarketable. 

 The number of haddocks taken in these six hauls was large, viz., 

 10,361, but only 394 of them were large enough to be marketable, 

 96 per cent, of the catch being returned to the sea. The prevalence 

 of the small haddocks on the ground in autumn, and their scarcity 

 in spring, may be shown in another way. While in February it 

 took ten hours' trawling to catch one unmarketable haddock and 

 two marketable, the number of the former taken in the same time 

 in September was 4196 and of the latter 166. The capture of 

 small unmarketable plaice was also very considerable on this 

 ground in autumn, 54 per cent, of the 13,610 plaice caught in the 

 six hauls being rejected on account of their small size. 



All the young haddocks and a large proportion of the young 

 plaice caught in this way perish, although under , favourable 

 conditions many of the latter may be preserved. 



It was shown formerly by similar investigations on board 

 commercial trawlers fishing on the deeper grounds in the North 

 Sea that the percentage of small fish taken there was less than in 

 the waters near shore. In the Moray Firth in February the 

 proportion of the unmarketable was 19 per cent., and in autumn it 

 was 67 per cent. 



Observations were also made on the maturity and growth of the 

 fishes caught, and a number of experiments were carried on with 

 small-meshed nets. 



The Hatching and Bearing of Plaice. 



Owing to the formation of a new road at the Bay of Nigg last 

 year, the Town Council of Aberdeen, from whom the site of the 

 hatchery is leased, desired that that building and some others 

 might be transferred to an adjoining part of the ground and 

 re-erected at their expense. To this proposal the Board agreed, 

 and the hatchery, the boiler and pump-house, and the storehouse 

 were accordingly taken down and rebuilt on the new site. 



The change involved considerable re-arrangement of the pipes, 

 &c, and the opportunity was made use of to effect some improve- 

 ments which experience had shown to be desirable. The Town 

 Council gave all reasonable facilities for the alterations and 

 improvements being carried out, so that the hatchery is now better 

 adapted for the work than it was before. The building itself is 



