of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
211 
Conclusion. 
In last year's Report the various modes by which the destruction of 
immature tish might be lessened were discussed, viz. (1) the protection of 
nursery grounds capable of definition, by prohibiting in such areas those 
modes of fishing which proved to be injurious; (2) by enlarging the mesh 
of nets, particularly of trawl-nets ; (3) by returning at once to the sea all 
the immature fish captured by the ordinary operations of fishing. In 
regard to the enlargement of the mesh of the net, which undoubtedly 
immensely favours the escape of small fish, it is not yet clear that this 
measure would be advisable, so far as concerns ordinary beam-trawling. 
At present few fish under 6 inches in length are caught by this mode of 
fishing as ordinarily practised, and while this standard of size comprises 
immature individuals of all the valuable food-fishes, it excludes nearly all 
the immature and many of the mature individuals of species of little value, 
which are allowed to escape and propagate and enter into competition for 
food with the more valuable kinds. The very extensive investigations 
being made on board the ' Garland ' as to the organisms which supply the 
food of the various kinds of edible sea-fish will show to what extent such 
competition for food takes place between the valuable and the compara- 
tively worthless species, and what measure of advantage is likely to accrue 
from enlargement of the mesh of the net. 
With regard to the utility of returning immature fish to the sea, I think 
it will be conceded that the results of the investigations detailed above 
strongly support procedure of this character. It has been most sensibly 
urged that if the fish perish after being replaced in the sea, any measure 
of this nature would be worse than useless ; since, besides imposing on 
fishermen a restriction which might occasionally be troublesome to carry 
out, it would interfere with the utilisation of a small, but still appreci- 
able, food-supply. But the experiments of the Fishery Board tend to 
show that the great majority of the fish»would live. In the case of 
shrimp-trawling, if the young fish are returned during the process of 
riddling the shrimps after the haul has been made, the fatality will be 
exceedingly small. It will be greater among immature round fish than 
among immature flat-fish ; among the latter the proportion destroyed, 
especially of plaice and probably of common soles — which are very 
tenacious of life — will not amount to more than a mere fraction per cent, 
of those captured. This conclusion, founded upon an extensive series of 
experiments, is one of great importance. 
It is a little diff'erent with ordinary beam-trawling on the high sea. 
Here the net may sometimes be kept down for seven or eight hours at a 
stretch, and sandy bottoms and muddy bottoms are worked on indiff'erently. 
I find, however, from Professor MTntosh's valuable Report on the trawl- 
ing experiments he conducted in 1884, at the request of the Royal Com- 
mission on Trawling,"^ that the average duration of 74 hauls made on 
board the beam trawlers he accompanied in their ordinary avocation on 
the East Coast of Scotland was rather under four hours and a half. Of 
the 74 hauls the longest lasted six hours and twenty minutes ; only 8 
were over six hours, and 20 over five. From the results of the experi- 
ments on the 'Garland,' there is little doubt that a large proportion of the 
immature fish captured by the ordinary trawlers would survive if returned 
to the sea. The number of round-fish, especially of whitings, which would 
perish would be considerable, but the great majority of immature flat- 
fishes — which it is of most importance to preserve — would undoubtedly 
survive. 
* Report of the Commissioners on the Use of the Trawl-Net and Bcain-Traicl in the 
Territorial Waters of the United Kingdom, 1885, pp. 382-429. 
