A great deal of obloquy has been thrown on the trawl, because it _hashes_ the fish; but the destruction of young fish—that is, fish unfit for human food because of their being young—is not peculiar to the trawl. When the lines are thrown out for cod the fishermen cannot command that only full-grown fish are to seize upon the bait: the tender codling, the unfledged haddock, the greedy mackerel _will_ bite—the consequence being that thousands of sea-fish are annually killed that are unfit for food, and that have never had an opportunity of adding to their kind. But this mischance is incidental to all our fisheries, no matter what the engine of capture may be, whether net or line. Look how we slaughter our grilses, without giving them the opportunity of breeding! The herring-fishing is a notable example of this mode of doing business: the very time that these animals come together to perpetuate their species is the time chosen by man to kill them. Of course if they are to be used as food, they must be killed at some time, and the proper time to capture them forms one of those fishing mysteries which we have not as yet been able to solve. We protect the salmon with many laws at the most interesting time of its life, and why we should not be able to devise a close-time for the cod, turbot, haddock, and sole of particular coasts—for each portion of the coast has its particular season—is what I cannot understand, and can only account for the anomaly on the ground of salmon being private property. The labour of the Scottish fishermen is greatly augmented by the want of good harbours for their boats. Time and opportunity serving, the men of the fisher class are really industrious, and this want of proper harbourage is a hardship to them. It is curious to notice the little quarry-holes that on some parts of the Moray Firth serve as a refuge for the boats. There is the harbour of Whitehills, for instance: it could not be of any possible use in the event of a stiff gale arising, for in my opinion the boats would never get into it, but would be dashed to pieces on the neighbouring rocks. I have witnessed one or two storms on the north-east coast of Scotland, and shall never forget the scenes of misery these tumults of the great deep occasioned. Even lately (October 1864) there was a storm raging along these coasts that left most impressive death-marks at nearly all the fishing places on the Moray Firth. I was not an eye-witness of this last gale, but I have gathered from various sources, oral and written, one or two passages descriptive of its violence and the loss of life it occasioned.