tables and the diagrams based on them have been prepared, showing the total annual catches and the average catches per trip of Gloucester vessels for a period of years. Gloucester alone was considered because all vessels from that port are liners, while the Boston fleet comprises the otter trawlers, which have gradually increased in numbers and have made it more difficult, therefore, to present valid comparisons between the several years.

QUANTITIES OF COD, HADDOCK, AND HAKE TAKEN BY GLOUCESTER LINE FISHER-
MEN ON GEORGES BANK, 1905 TO 1914, INCLUSIVE.

From the tables and diagrams several facts appear. In the first place, since 1905 there has been a general large and fairly continuous decrease in the combined catch of the principal species and of the cod taken on Georges Bank by Gloucester vessels using lines. In the case of the haddock there was an enormous decrease from 1905 to 1909, but since then there has been a general increase in the total quantity landed at Gloucester.

Synchronously with these developments, there has been a heavy decrease in the number of trips, and this decrease was numerically greatest prior to 1909, when there was but one steam trawler in service. The falling off in the totals was, therefore, to some extent due to a reduction of fishing activity by the Gloucester vessels, and to eliminate this variable we have reduced the catch to a basis of quantity per trip and have found that the catch per trip of cod, haddock, and hake combined was greater in 1914 than in any year since 1905 at least and of haddock was about equal to that of 1906 and much greater than for any other year of the period considered. The catch of cod per trip was greater in 1914 than during four of the preceding nine years. The average catch per trip of cod and haddock each, and of these two combined with the hake, was greater for the five years 1910 to 1914, inclusive, than it was for the preceding five-year period.

We find, therefore, that there is no statistical support for the claim that the haddock, or any other demersal fish on Georges, has

Diagram showing the total combined catch of cod, haddock, and hake, in hundredweights, average catch per trip in pounds, and number of trips made by Gloucester line fishermen on Georges Bank. The heavy horizontal lines show the average catch for five-year periods.

shown signs of overfishing since the first use of the steam trawler in 1905.

The increase in the catch of haddock per voyage of liners in 1914 can not be ascribed to an increased catch of scrod, for very few of the latter were taken, and the data show that very few are taken by liners even when the small fish are present in large numbers and are taken by the trawlers on the same ground. An examination of the

Diagram showing the total catch of cod in hundredweights, average catch per trip in pounds, and number of trips made by Gloucester line fishermen on Georges Bank. The heavy horizontal lines show the average catch for five-year periods.

monthly returns of this fishery shows that about 80 per cent of the haddock were taken in August and September, when the average per trip was nearly 40,000 pounds, as compared with an average of nearly 21,000 pounds for the year. The average for the remaining months was therefore comparatively low, and this doubtless has

given rise to the opinion of the fishermen that the fishery has been a failure, a view in which we can not concur. The total yield for the year is the true criterion. It may be noted that the heaviest

Diagram showing the total catch of haddock in hundredweights, average catch per trip in pounds, and number of trips made by Gloucester line fishermen on Georges Bank. The heavy horizontal lines show the average catch for five-year periods.

catch of the Boston fleet was made in January, February, and March, when Gloucester vessels made a monthly average of four trips to

Georges, as compared with an average of over 12 trips per month for the rest of the year.

Considering all of the data available respecting the supply of fish and particularly the haddock, the species most conspicuous in the catch of the otter trawlers, we can see no evidence of the depletion of the supply on the fishing grounds frequented by the otter trawlers. The average catch per trip shows no diminution from that made prior to the introduction of the steam trawlers.

DENUDATION OF THE BOTTOM BY OTTER TRAWLERS.

One of the most vigorously urged objections to the use of the otter trawl is that it tears loose, dislodges, crushes, and destroys the marine animal and vegetable growths which in places cover the bottom on the fishing banks. It is upon these sessile or attached organisms and the animals of many kinds to which they give harbor that the bottom fishes feed, and if it can be shown that any method of fishing or any practice of the fisheries denudes the bottom of any considerable proportion of these growths, it would establish abundant reason for regarding such fishery or practice as inimical to the productiveness of the banks.

The attached animals on the banks consist generally of sponges; hydroids and bryozoans, collectively called "sea moss" by the fishermen; ascidians, known as "lemons" and "strawberries"; sea anemones; mussels and other mollusks; burrowing and tube-building worms ("macaroni "); barnacles, etc. With the exception of many of the worms which burrow in sand or mud, the sessile forms are attached to rocks, pebbles, and shells, or to one another. Finding shelter among these or lying on the bottom are various species of crabs, shrimps, and other crustaceans; scallops, clams, and other bivalve mollusks; a variety of gasteropods or snail-like mollusks; many starfishes and brittle stars; sea urchins; sea cucumbers or "pumpkins"; worms; and fishes of various kinds, all preying or being preyed upon and in complex and intimate relation to one. another generally. There are many minute animals and plants on the bottom and on the bottom growths or in the overlying water. Of these the microscopic plants are highly important, as they, with the seaweeds, are the fundamental source of food, direct or indirect, of all marine animals. Some of the fishes feed directly on these organisms, while others feed on animals which either consume them directly or at some more or less proximate stage find them in the chain of elaboration of their food supply.

The immediately important commercial fishes taken by the line trawlers are haddock, cod, and, to a less degree, hake. The same market fish with the addition of the "sole" are taken by the otter H D-63-3-vol 104- 4