of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



61 



caught in the whole of the area covered by this Keport are sold fresh. 

 The quantity of herring which are salted or cured does not appear to be 

 very great at any time, but varies at different seasons. 



There is another point relative to the collection of statistics which is 

 worthy of note. As at present arranged, the west shore of the Sound of 

 Kilbrannan is in the Campbeltown district, while the east shore is in the 

 Rothesay district. It is practically impossible to decide in many cases on 

 which side the fish were caught, and it would be much more satisfactory 

 if both shores of the Sound were under the charge of one officer. The 

 whole of these considerations point to the necessity for the appointment 

 of an officer who should be solely responsible for the statistics of herring 

 caught between Ballantrae, Campbeltown, and Loch Fyne, and whose 

 duty it would be to follow the fishing from place to place and make a 

 thorough study of the whole industry. Such an officer would certainly 

 require a more liberal allowance for expenses than is permitted under the 

 present system, but he would do the work which now requires five men, 

 and would do it better than is possible under the present conditions. 



I cannot close this report without acknowledging my indebtedness to 

 the fishermen and others connected with the fishing industry between 

 Loch Fyne and Campbeltown, who have rendered me every assistance in 

 their power, and who take a lively interest in the scientific investigations 

 which are being carried on under the direction of the Fishery Board. 



APPENDIX F.— No. IV. 



REPORT as to VARIETY among the HERRINGS of the SCOTTISH 

 COASTS. Part I. By J. Duncan Matthews, F.R.S.E. 



Although the herring, principally from its great commercial import- 

 ance, has formed the subject of probably more investigation, and of a 

 consequent literature both popular and scientific, than any other sea fish, 

 the too general manner in which most of these investigations have been 

 conducted has led to the most contradictory results, and very little to the 

 real advance of our knowledge of the natural history of the fish itself. 



So far as regards the elucidation of that part of the subject with which 

 I am just now principally concerned, viz., the extent, if any, to which 

 variety, individually or racially, obtains among the herrings of our coasts, 

 past inquiries have failed to give satisfactory results, not only from the 

 difficulty of procuring information on the subject, but because the observa- 

 tions have been made on far too limited a scale, and without proper com- 

 parison of the fish found at different times and in different localities. 



The difficulties surrounding the subject still remain to interfere with a 

 satisfactory conclusion being come to, but in this investigation the attempt 

 has been made to reduce the error from limitation of observation to a 

 minimum, by the examination of comparatively a large number of ex- 

 amples from various places and during all seasons. 



The one real exception, so far as I am aware, to these remarks on 

 insufficient observation, is that of Dr Heincke, who has made an elaborate 

 investigation into the varieties of the herring of the Baltic, including a few 

 from the North Sea (Peterhead and Norway), and whose results appear in 

 an excellent report published by the German Fishery Commission.* 



* Jahrsbericht dcr Com. z. Wissensch. Untersuch. der deutschcn Meere, 1878, 

 1882. 



