According to a contemporary, we learn that Professor Cossar Ewart,
Edinburgh University, convener of the Scientific Investigation
Committee of the Board of Fisheries, was at the beginning of March at
the well-known fishing-ground off the coast of Ayrshire known as the
banks of Ballantrae, when some interesting investigations were made
into the nature of the sea-bottom and spawn deposited on that famous
herring-bed. The banks were dredged from a depth of eight to twenty-two
fathoms. At a depth of eight to eleven fathoms the bottom was composed
of clean gravel, with very little seaweed; beyond the eleven fathoms,
clay, mud, and shell. On the stones lifted by the dredge, portions of
herring spawn were found firmly attached to the surface of the stones
in different stages of development, the more advanced manifesting,
in lively action, the embryo herring. Spawn was also taken from the
living herring and placed on glasses in hatching-boxes, and these also
showed the eggs in progress of development. From a small stone of a
few inches of surface as many eggs were found as, if allowed to arrive
at maturity, would have yielded crans of herrings. The information
obtained by Professor Cossar Ewart, during his recent dredgings, will
be of the greatest importance in throwing light upon a hitherto but
imperfectly understood question in natural history.
The banks in the evening presented a scene of lively interest, for as
the sun began to set, a school of at least forty whales and porpoises
began to play, and, circling around the margin of the fishing-banks,
rose and fell in graceful plunges, their black fins and backs rising
in curves for a moment, and then disappearing, while the porpoises
made wild leaps many feet clear out of the water. Their presence was
accounted for next morning, when a good many of the seine trawlers
entered Loch Ryan and Girvan with from one to three hundred baskets of
herrings each.
Professor Cossar Ewart has since had some more successful dredgings.
He has also made some important discoveries regarding natural and
artificial spawning, and deposited live herring and a quantity of spawn
in the aquarium at Rothesay.