Fishery Board for Scotland. 



Ivii 



FISHERY BAROMETERS. 



We have to express our thanks to the Meteorological Department, Loan of Baro- 

 London, who still continue to show their unabated interest in the jj}^. 6 ™ } j y 

 welfare of those engaged in the fisheries by supplying on Loan Department* 

 Barometers to fishing stations. During the course of the past 

 year the following additional stations have, on the recommendation 

 of the Board, been supplied with barometers, — viz., Balta Sound Additional 

 and Uya Sound, in the island of Unst, Shetland; and Symbister, ^j™ 8 where 

 in the island of Whalsey, Shetland. These barometers have been 

 put up under the directions of the Board's officer of the district, 

 in central and suitable localities, and they have been received by 

 the fishermen with much gratitude. We have also to express our 

 thanks to the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society for their kindness in Presentation 

 making a free sift to each of the fishing stations of Eyemouth and °f Aneroids by 



i Shipwrecked 



Burnmouth, in Berwickshire, of an outside aneroid barometer set Mariners' 

 in an oak case, with thermometer and chart therein, and also for Soci «ty. 

 supplying on loan aneroid barometers, in hand boxes, to six 

 skippers of boats at Eyemouth, and two skippers at Burnmouth. 

 The liberality of this act on the part of the Society has been much 

 appreciated by the fishermen of the district. 



MARINE POLICE. 



In the Report on the Fishery Acts and Regulations and their Marine Police. 

 Amendment, which we prepared at your request in May 1883, and 

 which was afterwards presented to Parliament, as embodying some 

 of the matters on which, in our opinion, additional legislation was 

 most urgently needed, the subject of ' Marine Police ' was left over 

 for further consideration. 



Since then the whole of the statutes from which the Board 

 derives its powers have been submitted to a careful examina- Examination 

 tion by a Committee of our number, in the expectation that it of statutes 

 might be necessary for us to press for a Consolidating Act, in which by Comimttee - 

 the regulations now in force would be simplified and amended, and 

 brought within the scope of one general measure. A law intended 

 for the guidance of fishermen should, above all things, be simple Desirability of 

 and easily understood, and not consist, as at present, of a confused Consolidation, 

 series of enactments passed at different times, and qualifying each 

 other in so many ways, that it is sometimes hard to understand 

 what is left and what has been taken away, or how much of what 

 remains is not qualified by something else. But, while we were 

 considering the subject, the Sea Fisheries Act of 1883 came into superseded by 

 force; and as we find it an important advance, in some respects, on the Sea F ^^ ries 

 former law, and that it proceeds on the same lines as we ourselves c ' 

 had in contemplation, we have corne to the opinion that, until at 

 least some experience has been had of its practical working, it 

 will not be necessary to press for any further legislation, as regards 

 marine police. 



The general superintendence of the fisheries at sea is under General Super- 

 this Board intrusted to H.M.S. 'Jackal,' Lieut. J. R. Prickett in j^^ t of 



