128
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ST ANDREWS BAŸ.
SUMMARY.
ï
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Roché, French Inspector in Chief_ of Fisheries, as if it Were
perfectly reliablel.
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The
tables (I. to VII. et seq.) will demon—
strate that the basis on which the foregoin g criticism rests is
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not i'maginary.
The percentages increase (with a slight check
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in July) to August, and then diminish to December, just as the
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spindles formed by the animals in the pelagic fauna do, and as
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the larval and post—larval shes do from January to
The argument in the Report of the Fishery Boardî therefore,
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for further closure so as to control the “ spawning areas
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rests
on
no
satisfactory basis in this connection—whatever support
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it may have from general over-shing. The conditions of the
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two half—periods were wholly divergent, indeed, it might well
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,
have happened that the differences Were more pronounced than
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those in the Blue—book.
In the earlier Reports of the Board
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variations would have been attributed to migrations, but
there is no reason to think these are
of any moment in this
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case.
Fishes become more lethargic in cold weather, more
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lively in warm weather, and hence more readily come” in the
way
of capture in the latter than in the former.
Consequently, .
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the statistical analysis based on the half—periods just mentioned
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fails to be reliable, and does not prove
“ that there has been
a diminution of the more important at shes in the cloSed
waters, instead of an increase, as was anticipated ; and that
this may probably be traced to the inuence of beam—trawling
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in the open waters _”‘where the shes Spawn4.”
The reporter, it is true, states that the same conclusions
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1 La culture des'mers, 1898, p. 86, &e.
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2
Vide Life
Histories of
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thé Foàd-Fishes, McIntosh and Masterman, pp
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.,
p. 148.
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One critic
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uns Statement
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opinion On this “and other questions—the materials for decision in
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which did not appear to him to be sufciently c‘omp1ete, or were unsatiSfactory.'
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