of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



489 



I have referred to the work of this Committee. Since it may be taken 

 as a model — as it is certainly the most energetic — of the English District 

 Committees formed under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1888, the 

 following account of its organisation, &c, will be interesting. I am 

 indebted for it to Mr R L. Ascroft, one of the most active members of 

 the Committee. 



The district extends from Haverigg Point, in the county of Cumberland, 

 to a line drawn from Hilbre Island, in the county of Chester, in the direc- 

 tion of the North-West Light Ship in Liverpool Bay. The contributing 

 authorities to the expenses of the Joint-Committee for the district are the 

 counties of Lancaster, Cumberland, and Chester, and the County Boroughs 

 therein. The Joint-Committee is composed of twenty-eight members 

 appointed by the Board of Trade, three representatives of the Salmon 

 Conservators of the rivers Kibble, Linn, and Dee, and thirty representa- 

 tives nominated by the contributing authorities, and one nominated by 

 the borough of Southport, in the county of Lancaster. The total rateable 

 value of the different contributing areas, excluding the county of Chester 

 and the county of Cumberland (which have fixed contributions of £30 

 each) is £20,832,420. 



In the district are 25 steam-trawlers, manned by 225 men; 115 first- 

 class sailing-trawlers, manned by 555 men ; 332 second-class trawling, 

 line, and shrimping boats, manned by 620 men ; 193 open boats, manned 

 by 293 men, used in shrimping, musselling, cockling, and line fishing, 

 and 141 horses and carts (used for shrimping, cockling, and musselling, 

 and attending to the stake-nets, of which 30 are used principally for 

 shrimping), and 330 persons. There are also 40 donkeys used for mus- 

 selling and cockling, and 370 persons who fish on the shores without boats 

 or carts. The total active fishing population is thus 2393. 



The steam-trawlers do not fish in the territorial waters, and do very 

 little work anywhere near the district, simply using the ports on account 

 of their nearness to the markets. The first-class sailing-boats come into 

 the district for a few months (if allowed) during the autumn months 

 when the soles are near the shore. The second-class boats are used for 

 shrimping for both Crangon vulgaris and for Pandalus anmdicornis, for 

 trawling, line fishing, and a few at Morecambe for herring fishing. The 

 different methods of fishing used in the district are, for flat-fish (1) 

 beam-trawling ; (2) draw or draught nets, used by two men wading, and 

 also, in the usual way, shot from a boat and hauled to the shore ; (3) 

 stake-nets, the balk or net set across depressions in the sand called 



1 Lyrings ' (I suppose a corruption from ' lairings '), set in a semicircle, 

 and arranged to lift on the flood and drop to the ground on the ebb ; 

 (4) stream-nets, called in some parts trammel-nets, set across a strong 

 tide, without touching the ground, the fish are held in the slack of 

 the net by the pressure of water against it ; (5) ' keadle '-nets (corre- 

 sponding, I suppose, to the £ Redellas ' of Magna Ckarta), consisting of two 

 wings, with a long pouch of net between them, corresponding to the trawl- 

 net behind the foot-rope. I have seen instances in which the keadle-nets 

 were arranged to have the fish guided into one pocket with the flood, 

 and into another on the ebb, but it had three guides instead of two ; 

 (6) tees or lines set on shore or at sea, having snoods of horse-hair every 



2 feet, and having, instead of a hook, a pin bent to an obtuse angle, so 

 that when taken by a fish it forms a toggle across the mouth ; (7) fluke- 

 rakes, or rakes of 3 feet wide at the head, and having barbed teeth 

 every 4 inches set in line with the shaft, and used by probing into the 

 sand as the boat drifts with the tide. 



Cod and skate are taken by long lines baited with a worm found near 

 low water ; small flukes, herring, and sometimes whelks, or, as they are 



