SECTION A -GENERAL REPORTS. 



I. —REPORT ON THE TRAWLING EXPERIMENTS OF THE 



1 garland; and ON the statistics of the east 



COAST FISHERIES RELATING THERETO. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



During last year the trawling experiments of the ' Garland ' were 

 carried on at the various stations on the East Coast of Scotland, as in 

 former years. The stations in the Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay were 

 examined once a month, so far as circumstances permitted ; those in the 

 Moray Firth and off the coasts of Forfarshire and the stations at the 

 Orkney Isles, on two occasions, and off Aberdeenshire once. The 

 number of ordinary trawlings or periodic examinations of the stations in 

 the course of the year was 150, of which 76 were in the Firth of Forth 

 area, 35 in the Moray Firth, and 24 in St Andrews Bay. The stations 

 ill the Firth of Clyde, where the waters were closed by the Herring 

 Fishery (Scotland) Act of 1889, were not examined during the year from 

 want of means. The detailed results of the trawling observations will 

 be found in the various tables annexed to this Report. 



In addition to the systematic inquiry into the influence of beam-trawling 

 on the abundance of the fish supply, the 1 Garland ' carried on throughout 

 the year a series of observations on other important fishery questions. 

 Visits were made, when the weather was sufficiently favourable, to some 

 pf the fishing-grounds lying off the shore, and investigations concerning 

 the spawning and spawning-grounds of the food fishes, the nature and 

 distribution of fish-food, the relative abundance and distribution of pelagic 

 fish eggs and young fishes, &c, were continued. Experiments in line- 

 fishing with various kinds of hooks were also carried on. The study and 

 description of the collections of pelagic eggs, and larval and post-larval 

 fishes have, as in previous years, been under the supervision of Professor 

 M'Intosh, F.R.S., and some of the results are given in the present Report. 

 In connection with the sea fish hatchery at Dunbar the 1 Garland ' was 

 also employed in procuring adult flat-fishes and in transporting the fry 

 to the fishing-grounds. 



Continuous physical observations on the temperature, salinity, and 

 transparency of the sea have also been made at the various trawling 

 stations, and occasionally along selected lines in the Firth of Forth. 



Owing to the closure of the whole of the Moray Firth within a line 

 from Rattray Point to Duncansbay Head to beam-trawling, which came 



