of the Garland experiments for the ten years, as given in a very full report of their Superintendent of Scientific Investigations, Dr. Fulton:-

"In the Firth of Forth and St. Andrews Bay flat fishes have diminished in numbers since the waters were closed to beam trawlers, although it was naturally anticipated that, by the interdiction of that instrument by which they are principally captured, their number would have considerably increased."

The Board, however, instead of retracing its steps and opening the bays, which had been closed under a wrong impression, endeavoured to find an explanation for the complete subversion of their theory.

"The explanation," they said, "of the reduction of fish in the Forth and St. Andrews Bay is probably to be found in excessive trawling in the breeding grounds lying outside the closed areas from which the latter receive their sole supplies of floating eggs and larvæ.

"The mere closure of even large areas in the territorial waters, such as these two bays, which are devoid of spawning grounds, will have little or no permanent effect in increasing the number of food-fishes, especially the flat fishes, within them.

"The conclusion," they added, "points to the closure of off-shore areas during the spawning time, but the size or precise position of the areas that should be closed in relation to any given part of the territorial waters have not yet been well defined, nor, indeed, the situation and extent of the principal breeding grounds."

The experiments of the Garland were discontinued in these two bays, but have been maintained more fully in the Moray Firth and the Firth of Clyde, in both of which, according to Dr. Fulton, there are extensive spawning grounds. So far the results of the trawling in these bays show no increase of plaice and soles, and an increase only of worthless dabs, negativing, therefore, the assumption of the Board that the closing of spawning beds would be of any value.

It should be added that the results of the Garland experiments in the two closed bays, as tabulated by the Board, not only showed no increase of fish, as was anticipated, they also showed no improvement in the size of fish there:

"One of the consequences," says Dr. Fulton, "which it was anticipated would probably follow the closure of the waters to beam trawling was the increase in the average size of fish, especially the flat fishes which inhabit the closed areas. Protected from the action of the beam trawl, by which the great majority of flat fish are captured, it was supposed they might not only increase in numbers but also in size. This view has not been borne out by the facts; on the contrary, in most cases a small but nevertheless definite and appreciable diminution of size has occurred."

Unfortunately, however, the scientific value of these comparisons of the takes of fish during the ten years by the Garland is very much impaired, if not destroyed, by the fact that the Board have not taken

care that the trawlings of the Garland should, in the successive periods, be carried on under the same conditions and for equal lengths of time.

Professor McIntosh, at whose suggestion, in 1883, the experiment of closing some of the bays in Scotland was adopted, and who also advised the careful examination of the results of trawling operations by the Board, has written a very full and elaborate work1 on the results of the Garland experiments during the ten years from 1885 to 1895, with the object of testing the conclusions of the Board. His own opinions derived from them are the more noteworthy and important, inasmuch as they differ widely from those which he held and advocated before the Royal Commission of 1887 and the Parliamentary Committee of 1893.

In his report to the first of these bodies he thought it probable that over-fishing was the cause of a diminution of the supply of foodfishes; and before the latter, accepting the early Garland results without question, he advocated a far wider interference with the trawling industry than even that of prohibiting it in bays and other territorial waters. He has now arrived at the conclusion that there is no proof that any benefit whatever has resulted from the closing of the bays to trawling; while he points out that the trawlers who in past years obtained a large supply of fish from these bays have been deprived of this advantage, and that the public have suffered in consequence by a reduced supply of fish. He has practically come round to the conclusion of the Royal Commission of 1863-5, that the destruction of small fish by men is insignificant compared to that of their other enemies.

Professor McIntosh challenges the methods of comparison of the Fishery Board between the two periods of five years. He says that they have not made the experiments under the like conditions—that the trawling of the Garland during the first five years was carried on much more during the summer months, when the average take of fish is very largely in excess of that in the winter months; and that in the latter period of five years the trawlings were spread evenly over those years, or were in excess during the winter months. By an elaborate rearrangement of the figures published annually by the Board, and by comparing the captures separately for the summer months and for the winter months, averaging them for the number of hauls, Professor McIntosh arrives at the conclusion that there has not been the diminution of fish in the bays asserted by the Board, in spite of the closure, but that the supply of fish is very much what it was before these regulations were made.

After submitting the figures relating to St. Andrews Bay and the Firth of Forth to a critical examination, Professor McIntosh concludes (page 132):

(1) The Resources of the Sea. By Professor McIntosh.

"It is necessary to withhold sanction from the statement that the size of foodfishes has diminished. So far as personal observations have gone, the food-fishes in the areas have been, throughout the ten years, very much as they were before the closure." "The conclusion of the Fishery Board that there has been a decrease in the abundance of fish rests on the most uncertain foundation, and is of little moment in dealing with so large a question, especially when there is appended to it the theory that the cause is the over-fishing of the off-shore waters in the neighbourhood."

Further, of the Moray Firth he says:

"The facts in relation to the Moray Firth as regards food-fishes are in unison with what has been found in the other areas, and if they demonstrate one thing more than another, it is that the interference of man, especially by closure, is powerless to increase the food-fishes of the sea, or by eager fishing to reduce them to a vanishing point. A careful consideration of the returns, both of the liners and trawlers in connection with the Moray Firth, shows that there are no satisfactory grounds for the closure of spawning areas any more than for the closure of the inshore limits of three miles for the purpose of increasing the fish supply of the country. For ten years closure of part of the area has been in force, with the result that, allowing for the usual variation, the fishes in the area and its neighbourhood are, as a whole, very much what they were at the beginning. Scientific evidence as to the serious diminution of any species is wanting. On the contrary, there is proof of the abundance of all the important forms over a wide area, including, not only the closed region, but the waters beyond. Temporary reduction, local or otherwise, has always occurred, but sooner or later the nomad food-fishes again assert themselves, and continue, from generation to generation of men, a never-failing supply. . .

"The uniformity of the results of the observations and experiments in St. Andrews Bay, the Forth, the Moray Firth, and the Clyde is worthy of note, for in none can it be said that a substantial increment or a great diminution has occurred, in none have the fishes increased in size or varied in kinds from what they have always been."

The Professor generally concludes that:

"The protection of the area within the three-mile limit has entailed great responsibility upon the Government without in the least altering any of Nature's arrangements or adding to the stock of fishes within the area.

"Slowly the conviction has been reached that the closure of regions of the open sea in a country like Britain presents few advantages worthy of the constant strain and irritation of class against class, or of the considerable annual expenditure.”

In their more recent Report, for 1898, the Board endeavours to meet Professor McIntosh's criticisms by a very ingenious method. By separating the average takes of plaice and lemon soles (an inferior variety of the common sole) from those of dabs, by omitting altogether round fish, and other fish such as flounders, they contend that when the summer and winter catches in the first period are compared with the summer and winter catches in the second, they show that there has been a small reduction of plaice and soles in the latter period and a considerable increase of common dabs; and they

explain this by the allegation that the two former fish spawn in the off-shore waters where the trawlers have worked during the last ten years, while the dabs are said to spawn only on the inshore banks where trawling has been prohibited. Professor McIntosh has replied to this by pointing out that dabs spawn more in the off-shore waters than on inshore banks; and he asks, with great justice, why no account is taken of flounders, which are mostly inshore spawners, or of round fish. He contends that the gross result of the fishings in the two periods ought to be compared, and not that of selected fish which happen to suit the theories of the Scotch Board.

Without, however, entering further into the battle between the Board and the Professor, as to the exact figures and methods of comparison, we may take the conclusions of the Fishery Board itself, as to the results of the closure of the several bays, as conclusive proof of the absolute inutility of the measure.

Of the Firth of Forth and St. Andrews Bay they say, in their Report for 1898, that it was found, after ten years' investigation, that the most important change in the relative abundance of food-fishes of the closed areas was a diminution of the more valuable flat fishesplaice and lemon soles-and an increase in the comparatively "worthless dabs." "The inshore spawning dabs, therefore, to a very large extent, supplanted the off-shore spawning plaice."

Of the Firth of Clyde, where plaice and lemon soles are said to spawn, and where the closure has been in force for eight years, the Board tell us that the average take of flat fish has been increasing. But they add that this increase was due for the most part to an increased abundance of witches and long rough dabs, plaice and soles having diminished during the period. As there is little beam trawling outside the Firth of Clyde, and as the plaice and soles spawn within the Firth, the explanation relied on in the case of St. Andrews Bay wholly fails here. Of the Moray Firth, which is also said to be a spawning place for plaice and soles, the Board say that "the take of flat fish by the Garland increased from an average of 149 per haul in 1890. to 167 per haul in 1898, but that the increase was due to dabs, a fish of very little value." On the other hand, the closing of this bay has apparently had no effect whatever in increasing the takes of the line fishermen. The statistics of these have only been collected since 1894, and show the following results:

FISH CAUGHT BY THE LINES IN THE MORAY FIRTH.

M

It will be seen that in 1895 and 1896 there were considerable increases in the takes as compared with 1894. The Scotch Fishery Board, in their Report for 1896, hailed this as the beneficent result of their policy in closing the bay against trawling.

Unfortunately for this theory, the two following years showed a very large decrease, and that for 1898 was less than that for 1894; but the Board has made no retractation of their very hasty and unreliable conclusion of 1896. They content themselves with the suggestion, in their Report for 1898, that the large diminution of fish caught by the line fishermen may be, to some extent, due to the operations of foreign trawlers in the bay.

The last observation points to a very serious matter in connection with the closing of bays to trawling. Such prohibition is only valid against foreign fishing boats within the three-mile limit of the shore. We have, therefore, the extraordinary anomaly, to use no stronger expression, of English and Scotch boats being absolutely prohibited from fishing in areas of the sea so large as the Moray Firth, prolific of fish, while foreign fishermen cannot, under the Law of Nations, be interfered with. The result is that a certain number of French trawlers find their way to the Moray Firth, and catch fish there, and take them into British ports for sale with absolute impunity. In the Scotch Report for 1898 there is reference to the case of the prosecution of the master of a trawler called the Dewdrop for trawling in the Moray Firth. He was found guilty, and was fined £60, or in default 30 days' imprisonment. His gear was also forfeited and sold. The poor man was ruined, and, being unable to pay the fine, went to prison. While he was in prison French and other foreign boats were freely, without interference, trawling over the very ground. where he and other British fishermen were prohibited by severe penalties. The Report says:—

"The trawling question has become complicated by the appearance of foreigners. in considerable number, whose presence is all the more unwelcome from the fact that their operations are carried on in such a reckless manner as to involve a great deal of avoidable damage to the gear of the net and line fishermen. While it is a subject for much regret that it should be possible to cause so much loss with impunity, it is difficult to find a remedy, for the aggrieved fiahermen are not unnaturally indisposed to comply with the condition which is essential to investigation or trial of their complaints, viz., that they must proceed to the country of the crew believed to be responsible for the damage sustained.'

One would suppose that the true remedy would be to allow Scotch fishermen to trawl in the Moray Firth, for the French trawlers have only come there since the bay was closed to the Scotchmen, and obviously the bay is most handy for the local fishermen. The line fishermen would be able to claim damages for their lost lines from the Scotch trawlers in the Scotch courts, while it is obviously impossible