SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE 



LORD BALFOUR of BURLEIGH. 



Her Majesty's Secretary for Scotland 



Office of The Fishery Board 

 for Scotland, 

 Edinburgh, 1st May 1899. 



My Lord, 



In continuation of our Seventeenth Annual Report, we 

 have the honour to submit — 



PART III. — SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS. 



GENERAL STATEMENT. 



This part of the Seventeenth Annual Eeport contains an account 

 of the principal scientific investigations conducted by the Board 

 during 1898, in connection with the sea fisheries. Besides the 

 researches on the life-history and habits of the food fishes, and on the 

 invertebrate fauna, the results of which are set forth in this 

 Eeport, a number of other enquiries have been in progress, but are 

 not yet completed. Among these may be mentioned the migrations 

 of the food fishes, especially of the herring, the life-history of the 

 edible crab, and the distribution of spawning fishes and of immature 

 fishes in the Firth of Clyde and the Moray Firth. 



A considerable part of the scientific investigations have been 

 carried on by means of the " Garland." the small steamer which the 

 Board possesses for this work. As explained in previous Reports, 

 the scope and the extent of the investigations have been restricted 

 for the most part to the territorial waters and to the firths and 

 bays, owing to the small size of the " Garland." Her registered 

 tonnage is 36*4 tons, her length 84 feet 7 inches between perpen- 

 diculars, and her breadth 15 feet, and she is only adapted to carry 



