of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
219 
expanse of sand banks, and the gentle shallowing of the bank, militates 
against such excessive damage in the case of the cockle, which can per- 
form such an active burrowing movement by means of its foot. There 
is little doubt, however, about the other cause to which the decline is 
attributed, viz., the gathering of under-sized forms. Each gatherer 
tries with his or her neighbours to secure as many cockles as possible, 
the result being that as the supply of large forms decrease, smaller and 
smaller cockles are taken up. This has been admitted to me by 
gatherers, and one of the clergyman of the island, as well as the Board's 
officer at Castle Bay, Mr Duff, states that if regulations which will 
secure protection for the growth of the under-sized cockles are made, 
the natives would be thankful. The people wish to be protected 
against each other, so that if the Board's officer had power to seize im- 
mature sizes, much good would result. 
Whatever regulations are enacted, they must always satisfy one 
condition, that they will benefit the people of Barra, and obtain for 
them an increased revenue from their valuable cockle beds. Such 
regulations as to size in the case of the oysters produced in the basin of 
Arcachon have helped to develop the oyster industry of that district, 
and Denmark, Holland, and Spain have issued regulations as to the 
minimum size of certain kinds of fish. The discussions which have 
taken and are taking place at fishery conferences and in fishing circles 
in England, in reference to the capture of under-sized fish, all lean towards 
declaring a size below which fish ought not to be taken. In Scotland 
we have a standard size below which lobsters are not to be sold ; and 
Canada has been compelled, in the interests of the lobster fishery, to also 
fix a large regulation minimum size for lobsters. 
Protective measures to prevent the further depletion of the cockle beds, 
and to increase their productiveness, may assume one of three forms, viz., 
either by what is analogous to the rotation of crops in the agricultural 
world, or by decreeing a size under which no cockles can be exported, or 
by having a close season. These are not necessarily alternative, but may 
be complementary. As regards a close season, this is practically in force 
already, in so far as the heat of summer prevents cockles being transported 
alive to market when that occupies more than a day or two. Cockles 
should not be despatched to market during the breeding season. If a 
minimum legal size in the case of the cockle were decreed, the difference 
in the size attainable between cockles found in estuaries and those found 
in pure sea water, where there is no river near, should be taken into account. 
While estuarine cockles do not exceed one inch and a half or one inch and 
four-fifths in length, cockles easily grow to a size of two inches in such 
favourable places as Barra. Besides actual measurement, a handier method 
would be to select the cockles by riddling, or a maximum number might be 
fixed which a measure of capacity like the gallon measure might contain. 
A third helpful method, which could be worked along with regulations as 
to close season and a minimum size, might be to allow only a portion of a 
bauk to be open during the season for gathering. Any benefit which 
might be derived from the last might, however, be covered by the preceding 
suggestion as to a minimum size. This last regulation works well in the 
case of the natural banks of oysters which the French Government opens 
for a limited number of tides per annum to the mariners of the Maritime 
Conscription, for whose benefit they are entirely conserved. 
By adopting some such regulations as those suggested, the cockle beds 
of Barra would, I believe, be as productive as they have ever been, and the 
chronic poverty of one of the distant Hebridean Isles would be in some 
degree removed. 
