of the Fishery Board for Scotia /uL 



15 



SECTION A —GENERAL REPORTS. 



I. — REPORT ON THE TEAWL1NG EXPERIMENTS OF THE 

 'GARLAND,' AND ON THE STATISTICS OF EAST 

 .COAST FISHERIES.* Part III. 



I. INTRODUCTORY. 



In the previous parts of this Report the objects and methods of the 

 inquiry undertaken by the Scientific Department of the Fishery Board 

 into the influence of beam-trawling on the productiveness of fishing 

 grounds, have been set forth in detail and need not now be repeated. 

 The trawling operations of the ' Garland ' during last year were conducted 

 on the same general lines as formerly, the stations selected in the waters 

 set apart for experimental purposes having been periodically examined, 

 and the results tabulated in detail. These results are discussed below, 

 and the tables are given in extenso (p. 30). 



Besides the waters mentioned in last year's Report in which the 

 prosecution of beam- trawling has been suspended, it was decided to 

 recommend that the territorial waters between Red Head in Forfarshire 

 and Kinnaird Head in Aberdeenshire should also be closed against this 

 mode of fishing. A bye-law for this purpose was accordingly drawn up, 

 and after confirmation by the Secretary for Scotland, came into operation 

 on the 28th of February of the present year. In addition to the 

 stations previously formed in this area, namely, in the neighbourhood of 

 Aberdeen Bay, and which are described in a former report, three other 

 stations were selected. Two of these are in the vicinity of Montrose, 

 and the other is in Cruden Bay ; they are described on page 18. 



It was considered advisable, in order to obtain information supple- 

 mentary to that obtained by the 'Garland' in the inshore waters, to acquire 

 some knowledge of the offshore fishing grounds frequented by beam- 

 trawlers. Through the courtesy of Mr James Johnston, a member of 

 the Fishery Board, Mr Thomas Scott was enabled to accompany the 

 large and powerful steam-trawler, the ' Southesk,' belonging to Mr 

 Johnston's firm, on several of its expeditions on the East Coast. The 

 important observations of Mr Scott are referred to below, and an ab- 

 stract of his Reports on this branch of his work will be found at p. 171. 

 Our knowledge of the conditions of these offshore fishing grounds has 

 been so scanty hitherto, and Mr Scott's investigations have proved so 

 interesting, that the ' Garland ' has been sent to the Moray Firth to make 

 a careful survey and examination of the well-known Smith Bank and 

 other offshore fishing grounds lying in that region. It will be thus 

 possible to institute a comparison between these grounds and the 

 experimental trawling stations of the ' Garland ' in the inshore waters of 

 the Moray Firth. 



It was intimated in last year's Report that systematic investigations 

 had been begun, in connection with the trawling experiments, into 

 certain important relations of the food -fishes, such as the proportional 

 distribution of round and flat-fishes in the inshore and offshore waters, 

 the time and place of spawning, the migratory movements, &c. The 

 information thus obtained on several of these points is so extensive and 



* The Stations of the 'Garland' are described in previous Reports {vide p. 184). 



