of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



19 



peaceably carried on together, as in Upper Loch Fyne, above Otter Spit, 

 and in the Kyles of Bute, but these powers should be enforced merely as 

 a matter of police. 



Another Royal Commission reported on the subject a few years later. 

 It was composed of Sir James Caird, Professor Huxley, and Mr. G. Shaw- 

 Lefevre. In 1864 they visited the Clyde districts, and in their report* 

 they said — " We are unable to find any satisfactory proof, in the evidence 

 that has been brought before us, that trawling or circle-net fishing for 

 herrings is, when properly practised, wasteful, or destructive to the 

 brood and spawn of the herring. We are of opinion that it has been and 

 may be a very important means of supplying the market with an 

 abundance of fish, and that, not unfrequently, under circumstances which 

 preclude the capture of herrings by the drift-not fishermen." They 

 pointed out that it was perfectly clear that there are times when the 

 " trawl " will take fish when none can be caught by the drift-net. They 

 declared their opinion that, except in a certain specified locality (Upper 

 Loch Fyne and the Kyles of Bute), no justification whatever existed for 

 the suppression of seine-net fishing for herrings, and they recommended 

 the repeal of the Acts. 



It appears that the firm enforcement of the Acts by the Board of 

 Fisheries had brought about a change in the opinions of the fishermen 

 themselves, who, when the drift-net failed to take the herrings they knew 

 to be present in the loch, were prevented from using the seine by which 

 they might have been caught. By an Act passed in 1867t it was made 

 lawful to fish for and take herrings and herring fry at all places on the 

 coasts of Scotland, in any manner of way, and by means of any kind of 

 net having meshes not less than the regulation size of one inch from 

 knot to knot, and the sections in the Acts of 1851, 1860, and 1861 which 

 referred to seine-net fishing for herrings were repealed by the Sea 

 Fisheries Act of 1868. 



The restoration of the liberty to use the seine-net was received with 

 great satisfaction by the fishermen generally. They had petitioned that 

 the liberating Act might be hastened, and when intelligence was received 

 in July, 1867, that the Act had received the royal assent there was much 

 rejoicing. The fishermen in Upper Loch Fyne, who had been the most 

 resolute opponents of seining some years before, provided themselves with 

 seine-nets, the fishing was carried on throughout the season almost 

 entirely with such nets, and the Officers reported that there were no com- 

 plaints of any kind. Except for a short period in September, scarcely any 

 drift-nets were employed, and then mostly because the men were not 

 possessed of seines. They were, moreover, singularly unsuccessful, 

 catching hardly any herrings. 



In the season of 1868, however, a change occurred. When the fishing 

 opened, and for a few weeks afterwards, seines alone were used, but then 

 it was found that the drift-net was more successful than the seine, and as 

 the season advanced more and more of the boats put aside the seines and 

 employed drift-nets, which continued the more successful until the end of 

 the year. The reason given by the Fishery Officer was that the herrings 

 kept more than usual out in the deep water, where at that time the seine- 

 net could not be well used. In 1869 the fishing began in the same way 

 and drift-nets gradually replaced the seines. At the end of June 190 

 boats used seine-nets and 51 drift-nets; by the middle of July, half the 



* Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Sea Fisheries of 

 the United Kingdom, Vol. I., 1866. 



t " An Act to Alter and Amend the Acts relating to the British White Herring 

 Fishery, 1867," 30 and 31 Vict., c. 52. 



