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Part III. — Eleventh Annual Report 



SECTION B— BIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS. 



I. — AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON THE MIGRA- 

 TIONS AND RATE OF GROWTH OF THE FOOD-FISHES. 

 By Dr T. Wemyss Fulton, F.R.S.E., Superintendent of Scientific 

 Investigations. 



Introductory. 



There is probably no subject connected with sea-fisheries about which 

 more has been written than the migrations of fishes, and there are few 

 points in the life-history of fishes about which we are at the present day 

 more ignorant. A great deal is now known concerning the food, propagation, 

 development, distribution, &c, of sea-fishes, but beyond general informa- 

 tion as to the movements of the great shoals at certain seasons, little 

 definite knowledge has been acquired. The question is, nevertheless, one 

 of importance from the practical point of view, and is becoming of greater 

 importance year by year, as the necessity for further regulation of the 

 fisheries appears more obvious. Do the fish in territorial waters, from 

 which an effective mode of fishing — beam-trawling — has been excluded, 

 remain there for any length of time ; if defined areas are protected in the 

 offshore waters, how long, and at what seasons, are the various species of 

 fish likely to remain within it or to wander from it, and what is the 

 extent of surrounding water for which such an area may become a 

 ' feeder,' say, of valuable flat-fish ; what is the relation between the 

 spawning grounds of the herring and the seat of the great herring 

 fisheries, e.g., between the Lochfyne fishing and the spawning beds at 

 Ballantrae, about which regulation is at the present moment demanded 1 

 Something must be ascertained about the migrations of the fishes before 

 these fishery problems can be thoroughly understood. 



The migrations of the herring have attracted attention for centuries, 

 and a large volume could be written about the theories promulgated, 

 which were almost all erroneous and very often mischievous in their 

 results. Examples may be found in the histories of all the great herring 

 fisheries of Europe— Scanian, Bohuslan, Norwegian, Dutch and British. 

 The theory which held sway for centuries was the ' icy-sea ' or polar theory 

 originated apparently by Gilpin, which was elaborated with extraordinary 

 minuteness, modified from time to time in its details, and only finally 

 abandoned comparatively late in this century. It assumed that the her- 

 ring was bred in the Arctic Seas, that dense shoals led by a large fish, ' the 

 ' king ' (always returned to the water) moved south early in the year 

 and broke up into smaller shoals, which travelled along various coasts and 

 returned later in the year to the Polar Sea. When it was at last recognised 

 that herrings spawned off our coasts and remained at certain places 

 throughout the winter (late last century), the herrings were divided into 

 'foreign herrings' (from the icy seas) and 'home-bred' herrings. I 

 only mention this theory to show how injuriously general ideas of this 

 kind may affect the fisheries; for it was under its influence that the 

 regulations of the buss fishing were drawn up, and hundreds of thousands 

 of pounds squandered. It was even proposed in a Government report to 



