of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



13 



As has been pointed out in preceding Eeports, the hatching 

 work at Dunbar has been much impeded and restricted from the 

 absence of a large sea-water enclosure in which the adult fishes to 

 be used as spawners could be gradually collected and retained 

 from one season to another, instead of requiring to be obtained 

 from trawlers at the beginning of each season. With the object of 

 obtaining this facility it was decided to remove the hatchery, as 

 explained in last year's Eeport, to the Bay of Nigg, near Aberdeen, 

 where a suitable site for the purpose was obtained from the Town 

 Council of Aberdeen. The construction of a large concrete tank, 

 ninety feet in length by thirty-five feet in breadth, and with an 

 average depth of seven and a half feet, was begun at the new site 

 in the spring of the year, the object being to have the tank sunk 

 sufficiently deep in the ground adjoining the beach as to have a 

 mean depth within it of four feet of water at high- water of 

 ordinary neap tides. It was, however, found necessary to suspend 

 the construction of the tank in September, and to continue the 

 hatchery at Dunbar for another season. When the concrete 

 tank is completed during the ensuing year, the hatching house at 

 Dunbar, with the apparatus, pumps, and plant will be removed to 

 the new site, and the necessary supply of sea- water will also then 

 be available for the Marine Laboratory which was erected on the 

 site last autumn, and whose equipment has for the same reason 

 been delayed. 



The Pelagic Fish Eggs and Larval and Post-Larval 

 Fishes of Loch Fyne. 



In the present Eeport will be found a paper by Mr. H. C. 

 Williamson describing the results of an investigation into the 

 occurrence and abundance of the pelagic eggs of fishes and the 

 young fishes in Loch Fyne. Tow-net collections were made once a 

 month from January to August at five localities in the upper and 

 lower lochs at various depths from the surface to fifteen fathoms. 

 The pelagic eggs of about thirty species were procured, principally 

 in March, April, May, and June, including those of the common 

 food fishes, and the spawning period of most of these has been 

 deduced from the presence or absence of the eggs in the monthly 

 collections. The degree of development of the various eggs was 

 ascertained, and calculations are made to indicate in an approximate 

 manner the numbers of pelagic fish eggs floating in the waters of 

 Loch Fyne during the first eight months of the year. 



Nearly three thousand larval and post-larval fishes were taken in 

 the tow-nets, most of them belonging to species with demersal eggs, 

 such as the gobies and the bimaculated sucker. Among them are 

 forms which have been identified as the young of the mackerel. 

 The abundance of the pelagic invertebrate fauna, especially the 

 Copepoda, which constitute a considerable part of the food of the 

 herring in Loch Fyne, was also determined in the various months. 

 The paper is accompanied by a number of Tables and by five Charts 

 and Plates. 



