SUMMARY AND GENERAL REPORT. 
I beg to submit the report on the scientific investigations for the 
year ending 31st December, 1905. 
The delay in publication has been brought about by an attempt 
to forestall a desired if not inevitable co-ordination of fishery 
research in England by getting the Board of Agriculture and 
Fisheries to publish our annual report. The attempt raised a 
number of difficulties, not the least of which was that connected 
with editing the papers. At length it was determined in the mean- 
time to publish the report locally as heretofore. It is to be hoped 
however that the important question, the fringe of which has been 
touched by our negotiations will be solved through the Board 
becoming more closely associated with the work of fishery research 
in England. 
The report contains a more exhaustive account of the White 
Fisheries of Northumberland than has hitherto been possible, based 
on the results of 14 years continuous trawling experiments, Govern- 
ment statistics, and a consideration of the history of the local 
fisheries. 
The trawling experiments have been made at stations close to 
the shore during the summer, and the majority of the stations have 
been visited twice each year. Even during the short season, the 
experiments indicate that the stations are liable to gain and loss 
from the areas immediately outside, but within the district, and that 
the inward movement may also and usually does include deep-sea 
extra-territorial fish, especially plaice. 
The stations may be divided into two northern and four southern, 
and the contrast between the two divisions, with regard to the 
relative numbers of fiat fish, is as striking as that previously shown 
in the case of the crab (v. last year's report). This is borne out and 
extended to other forms by an appeal to the statistics of the inshore 
fisheries. 
