more fish were killed by the nets, and never taken ashore. When the Wick fishery first began the fisherman could carry in a creel on his back the nets he required; now he requires a cart and a good strong horse! Leaving out one of the twenty-seven seasons (the first), and dividing the remaining twenty-six into two periods of thirteen each, we find the aggregate of the boats, the average crans to each, and the aggregate total for the Boats. Average Crans. Total Crans. 1st thirteen years, 10,202 941 735,318 2d ” 13,522 519 539,719 During the first of these periods each boat carried about twenty-five nets, spun and worked in the county in a homely way; during the second period each had from thirty to thirty-five nets, machine-made, the twine being very even and fine, and far larger and deeper, a great many of them being of cotton, and far superior in their catching power to those of the first period; and yet, with 3320 additional boats carrying perhaps 200,000 more nets, larger, finer, and deeper than in the first period, we took 195,609 barrels fewer fish in the second than in the first thirteen years. During a late Wick fishing, a remarkable feature was the great disparity in the catch by individual boats. Although the average per boat over the whole fleet is set down as about eighty-three crans, yet half the boats do not average forty crans. As a rule, the boats that take the most fish are those with the longest, finest, and deepest drifts. In fact, the whole argument just amounts to this—that if the fish are as plentiful as ever, then double the quantity of netting _ought_ to take double the quantity of herrings. During a late Wick season (1863), the entire fleet was only at sea twelve nights, and the average per night to each boat was only three crans. The _Northern Ensign_, a local journal, has over and over again asserted that the fish are as numerous as ever; but that, in consequence of the crowd of boats, there is not room to capture them. In answer to this I may note, that on six different evenings of the season, when the boats out ranged from two to six hundred, the take did not average half a cran per boat. It may be likewise stated that 604 boats, in the year 1820, with a greatly less amount of netting, took as many fish as have been taken this season (1863) although the boats fishing were 480 above the season of 1820. The average capture per boat in 1820, with the limited netting, was 148 crans, whilst the average for 1863 was only 85 crans! How is it possible to reconcile such great differences?