Marine Biology

Abstract

THE number of the Journal of the Marine Biological Association recently issued (new series, vol. vi., No. 4) contains a detailed report on the trawling and other investigations carried out by the association in the bays on the south-east coast of Devon during 1901 to 1902. The report has been prepared for the information of the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee by Mr. Walter Garstang, the naturalist in charge of the fishery investigations of the association, and is based upon a series of experimental trawlings and fish-marking experiments carried out by Dr. H. M. Kyle. The bays investigated are at present closed to trawlers, and as this closure has been found to press some-what hardly on the smaller fishermen, the Sea Fisheries Committee were anxious to ascertain to what extent it was likely to be beneficial to the fisheries of the district as a whole. The general conclusion arrived at in the report is that, having regard to the permanent maintenance of the fishery, it would appear to be highly inadvisable to rescind the regulation which prohibits trawling in Teignmouth Bay and Torbay, where small fish congregate. On the other hand, there are no biological reasons against the reopening of Start Bay, since small fish are found in inappreciable numbers, whilst large plaice concentrate there during the autumn months.