Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/348

324 To this letter the following reply has been received: —

Whitehall, July 12, 1878. ", — I am directed by the Secretary of State to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6th inst., submitting observations on behalf of the Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the herring fisheries of Scotland, dated the 1st March last. Rh Rh

Your Committee conceives that the points at issue between it and the Scottish Herring Fishery Commissioners are thus fairly stated, and is confident that all unbiassed persons will admit that those Commissioners have overstated their case. Your Committee would further remark that, though the Sea- Birds Preservation Act contains a provision (in section 3) for varying the close time therein enacted on due application, no such application appears ever to have been made on the ground of detriment to the herring fisheries caused by sea-birds ; while there can be no reasonable doubt that any application for shortening the close time on that ground, if duly made, would be granted — circumstances which would seem to show that the conclusions of the Commissioners were not generally shared by those interested in the fisheries. On the other hand, your Committee may refer to the fact, already mentioned in former Reports, that several applications have been made for prolonging the existence of the close time.

With regard to the Wildfowl Preservation Act, your Committee has to report that the discontent caused by its establishing a close time different from that which was originally proposed by your Committee still exists in some quarters, but that the power of variation the Act contains has been put in force in many counties; and your Committee trusts that when this power has been still further exercised, as it doubtless will be, and the Act practically brought into accordance with your Committee's first proposal, of which there are many indications, dissatisfaction will be reduced to a minimum, or will altogether cease.

A Bill for the Protection of Freshwater Fish has been introduced into Parliament during the present session, and will doubtless