Fishery Board for Scotland. 
IX 
erected at Tarbert, Lochfyne, which was placed under the charge of 
Mr George Brook, F.L.S., and was occupied until 1887. During 
1886-87 a portion of Kothesay Aquarium was made use of, and 
from 1884 until 1889 part of the scientific work was carried on at 
the Natural History Department of the University of Edinburgh, 
under the charge of Professor Ewart. Subsequently a marine 
laboratory was built at Dunbar, which has since been added to, 
and in connection with which the Board are now erecting a large 
hatchery for the propagation of sea-fish. In addition to the 
laboratories mentioned, the fishery cruisers have occasionally been 
engaged in aiding the scientific inquiries, as have also the staff of 
Fishery Officers around the coast. Since 1886 the small steam- 
vessel ' Garland/ although not at all sufficient for the work, has 
also rendered important services. 
At the time when the scientific investigations were begun very Haphazard 
little was known regarding the habits of sea-fishes. Fishermen, character of 
who presumably ought to know something of the life-history of the ^orT^ leglsla " 
fishes they catch, knew, as Professor Huxley has remarked, very 
little beyond the best way to catch them. Yet from the earliest 
period until comparatively lately, the practice has been to shape 
fishery legislation in accordance with local desires or the popular 
opinion prevailing at the time, and not upon ascertained conditions. 
A study of the statutes dealing with sea fisheries, especially those 
passed by Parliament from the middle of last century to about the 
middle of this, shows that vast sums of money have been expended 
uselessly, and injurious restrictions imposed for reasons which 
scientific investigations have now proved were illusory. About 
thirty years ago, however, an important change in this system was 
effected. Van Beneden on the continent, and Professor Huxley, 
Mr Spencer Walpole, Mr Shaw Lefevre, and others in this country 
made a stand against haphazard regulations, and in Great Britain 
their action found practical expression in the liberating Act of 
1868 (31 and 32 Vict. c. 45), which repealed or amended 64 fishery 
statutes, and restored liberty of fishing. The Boyal Commissioners 
who brought about this reform (the late Sir James Caird, Professor 
Huxley, and Mr Shaw Lefevre) refer in their report to the absence 
of knowledge about the habits of sea fishes, their reproduction, 
spawning places, and conditions of existence which is essential to 
effective regulation of the fisheries. 
An indication of the lack of accurate knowledge on these sub- opinions ex- 
jects as lately as 1883 was afforded at the London International pressed at 
Fishery Exhibition in 1883, when a high authority thus described hMtion, 1883. 
the condition of things at that time: — 'It is a very striking fact 
' that the one point on which all speakers at the conferences held 
* during the past summer at the Exhibition were agreed was this, 
' that our knowledge of the habits, time and place of spawning, food, 
' peculiarities of the young, migrations, &c, of the fish which form 
' the basis of British fisheries, is lamentably deficient, and that 
* without further knowledge any legislation or attempts to improve 
* our fisheries by better modes of fishing, or by protection or culture, 
■ must be dangerous, and indeed unreasonable.' 
It is a source of satisfaction to the Board that their labours in Successful re- 
suits obtained. 
