The other mode of fishing for herrings, which has existed for about a quarter of a century, is illegal, although it is as nearly as possible the same as is legally used to capture the pilchard on the coast of Cornwall. In the west of Scotland, on Lochfyne in particular, where it is still to some extent practised, it is called “trawling;” but the instrument of capture is in reality a “seine” net; and, so far as the size of the mesh is concerned, is all right. The mode of using this net I shall presently describe; in the meantime I may state that the practice of “seining” has given cause to much disputation and many quarrels, some of them resulting in violence and bloodshed; the whole dispute having given rise to the recent Commission of Inquiry. It is worth while, I think, to abridge the commissioners’ account of the cause of quarrel, and the arguments used on both sides of the question. The drift-net men assert that immature herrings are caught by the trawl, and that that mode of fishing breaks up the shoals, and that these scatter and do not again unite, as also that the seine destroys the spawn. A graver assertion is, that the trawled herrings are not fit for curing in consequence of their being injured in the capture; likewise that the seine-net fishers are given to brawling and mischief. The assertion is also made that it is quite impossible for the two kinds of fishing to be carried on together, especially in confined places like Lochfyne. The real reason is, I think, brought in last—viz. that the great quantities of fish taken on a sudden by the trawlers affect the markets and derange the prices—all to the great detriment of the drift-net men. The trawlers are quite able to answer all these questions both individually and by a general denial. They say that it is not their interest to contract the width of the mesh, and that, in fact, the trawl-net mesh is quite as large as the other. They assert that a seine-net is not so much calculated to disturb a shoal of herrings as the drift-net, which is of great length and at once obstructs the shoal. They deny that they have interfered with the spawning-beds, and also state that they have no particular interest in catching foul fish, as they sell their herrings chiefly in a fresh state, and say that their fish are most adapted for the fresh market, likewise that they can be cured as easily as herrings caught by the drift-nets. They emphatically deny being brawlers, or that they wilfully injure the drift-nets; and they assert that both kinds of fishing can perfectly well be carried on simultaneously on the same fishing-ground. In fact the trawlers, in my opinion, have thoroughly made out their case; and the commissioners, I am very glad to record, have decided in their favour.