32 
Part III. — Eighth Annual Report 
closed and open areas, chiefly due to a diminution in the numbers of 
round fish. In both the closed and open areas there was an increase in 
plaice and flounders. 
The statistics show that in 1889 there was a general increase of the fish 
captured by fishermen in the territorial waters. Those regarding the 
capture of flaD fish in the Leith and Anstruther districts show more 
favourably, as compared with the statistics of 1888, than in the case of 
the districts further north. In 1889 the line fishermen along the East 
Coast landed a larger quantity of fish than in 1888. They landed a 
larger quantity of round fish, and a smaller quantity of flat fish than in 
1888; while beam trawlers landed less flat fish and round fish. In the 
southern groip of districts, however, the amount of flat fish landed by 
fishermen in 1889 was greater than in 1888. 
It is a remarkable circumstance that, although there has been a general 
diminution of fish in the closed and open areas, plaice should have in- 
creased in both the closed and open waters of the Firth of Forth and St 
Andrews Bay. In the special report on the distribution of immature fish 
(p. 157) it is very clearly brought out that the distribution of young 
plaice is peculiar, inasmuch as they are practically confined to the ter- 
ritorial waters. The supposition, therefore, appears to be justified that the 
protection of the immature plaice in the territorial waters during the past 
few years has been followed by a general increase in the numbers of that 
fish both on the in-shore and off-shore grounds. The inquiries carried on 
on board the ' Garland ' into the food, spawning, and migration of the food 
fishes, and into the distribution of immature flat fish and round fish, 
bear very closely upon the trawling experiments. They have shown that 
the territorial waters do not to any extent serve as spawning grounds, but 
as nurseries for young plaice, whiting, cod, and other food fishes. In 
September last year a vast shoal of small immature whitings was present 
in the Firth of Forth, their numbers being calculated to be above 
230,000,000. 
T. WEMYSS FULTON, 
Secretary for Scientific Investigations. 
