of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



13 



liberated, nearly ten per cent, were recovered almost exclusively by 

 hook and line, and there is reason to believe that the number 

 actually recaptured by trawl and line combined was very much 

 greater. Thus, in the case at least of this important flat-fish, the 

 ratio of man's destructive influence may be very considerable when 

 compared with the destruction from natural causes. 



In almost every maritime country sea fisheries are now subjected 

 to protective regulation, by the prohibition, for a shorter or longer 

 period, of certain methods of fishing, or of all methods, within 

 defined areas, by interference with the apparatus of capture, the pro- 

 hibition of catching or landing certain fish, &c. In Scotland, by the 

 operation of the Herring Fisheries (Scotland) Act of 1889, and by 

 the bye-laws passed by the Board in conformity with that Act, the 

 whole of the territorial waters, and certain firths and bays, have 

 been closed to beam -trawling. It is felt, however, that the powers 

 of the Board are not at present sufficient to enable them to regulate 

 the sea fisheries to the best advantage. They have no power of 

 interference with the apparatus of capture, similar to that exercised 

 by other fishery departments in Europe, and which was conferred 

 upon the English Sea Fisheries District Committees by the Sea 

 Fisheries Regulation Act of 1888. It is also becoming more 

 evident, from the results of scientific fishery investigations both in 

 this country and abroad, that the present limit of the territorial 

 waters to three miles from low-water mark is inadequate for the 

 proper regulation of the fisheries. When the three-mile limit was 

 established for the North Sea by international agreement, early in 

 the present century, it was assumed that the breeding-grounds of 

 the food-fishes were situated within that boundary ; but it has now 

 been proved that this is very rarely the case, and that the great 

 majority spawn outside the territorial waters. If jurisdiction were 

 extended to ten or twelve miles from the shore it would enable 

 these to be brought under more effective control, either by the 

 protection of defined areas during the spawning period or other- 

 wise. 



The Hatching of Sea Fish. 



One of the measures which have been adopted in several countries 

 to meet the depletion of inshore fisheries, consists in the re- 

 stocking of the exhausted grounds with multitudes of fry, hatched 

 in sea-fish hatcheries. Such hatcheries now exist in the United 

 States, Canada, Norway, and Newfoundland ; they are proposed in 

 Belgium and France ; and the Lancashire Sea Fisheries District 

 Committee have resolved to establish one at Port Erin, in the Isle 

 of Man. During last season, 240.000,000 cod were hatched at 

 the Norwegian establishment at Arendal, and placed on the fishing- 

 grounds — the total cost being about one penny for each ten 

 thousand fry hatched and ' planted.' In Newfoundland the number 

 of cod hatched aDd distributed was 165,250,000, and the number 

 of lobsters 429,785,000 ; while 7,000,000 lobsters were hatched in 

 the Canadian establishment. 



As stated in last year's Report, the Board, after careful con- 

 sideration of the question, resolved that this method of increasing 



