1 0 Part III. — twenty-fourth Annual Report 



for the local fisheries and technical schools, and men who wish to 

 devote themselves to such industries as canning and curing fish, 

 the manufacture of fish-oils, iodine, &c. 



In this country there is perhaps room for a more thorough 

 scientific and technical training in connection with the treatment 

 and curing of fish than now obtains. 



Investigations on the Herring Fisheries in .the Firth of 



Clyde. 



The investigations on the herring fisheries in the Clyde refer 

 chiefly to Ballantrae Bank and Lochfyne. With regard to the 

 former, where a Bye-law (ISTo. 18) is in operation interdicting seine- 

 net fishing within a certain area, the fishery last season, as for 

 some years past, was a failure, the weather having been almost 

 continuously stormy up to the middle of March. The Fishery 

 Officer reports that, although the "appearances" of herrings on 

 the bank were as good as ever they were before — that is, the 

 presence of whales, solan geese, and the oily look of the surface, by 

 which fishermen judge of the location of herring-shoals — and 

 though it was conclusively proved that herrings visited the ground 

 to spawn by the fact that the gill-nets set for cod were coated with 

 herring-eggs, the total quantity of herrings taken was 383 crans — 

 15 by drift-nets, 83 by seine-net, and 285 by " trammels" or set- 

 nets. No observations were thus possible as to the herring at 

 Ballantrae ; and, owing to the want of a steamer, equipped for such 

 work, dredging operations on the bank could not be undertaken. 



The fact that shoals of herrings have continued to frequent these 

 grounds every spring in recent years, and have been scarcely at. all 

 disturbed by the action of the nets of fishermen, while the Loch- 

 fyne fishing has been extremely unsuccessful, does not lend support 

 to the theory, strenuously held a few years ago, that the seine- 

 net fishing at Ballantrae. was injurious to the fishing in the loch ; 

 though sufficient time has not yet elapsed to make this certain. 



The investigations in Lochfyne concern the decline in the yield 

 of the fishery in recent years, especially in 1904 and 1905, the 

 latter being amongst the worst years on record, and are designed to 

 throw light on the movements of the herring-shoals into and out 

 of the loch, the places where the herrings spawn and the periods, 

 the relation of the abundance of food-material in the loch to the 

 abundance of the herrings, the growth of the herring, and the great 

 fluctuations that occur. An investigation of this kind is difficult 

 under the most favourable circumstances and must necessarily 

 cover several successive seasons. As much as possible has been 

 done by the hire of boats ; monthly observations on the tempera- 

 ture and food-material for the herring have been made for over a 

 year, but they had to be suspended during last winter, owing to 

 the lack of funds to meet the expenses. 



In addition to the information afforded by the course of the 

 fishing and the places of capture of the fish, two methods have 

 been adopted with the object of tracing the migrations of the 

 herring. One consists in marking the herrings with a printed silk 



