THE STOCK OF PLAICE 41 



larger and older plaice had been reduced heavily {and especially 

 the stock oj larger' and older males), and that the proportion of 

 undersized fish in the landings was increasing. 



The term ' small fish ' is in this sense taken to mean an 

 immature fish which has had no opportunity of reproducing 

 its species. From what has been written about ' maturity ' 

 it will be seen that it is impossible to fix any hard and fast 

 size-limit belovv which all fish are ' imm.ature '.^ But, roughly 

 speaking, a fish less than 11 J inches in length is a 'small 

 fish '. 



The proportion of small fish in the landings from the North 

 Sea was : 



1906 . . 31-5(3 1910 . . 41-71 



1907 . . 44-05 1911 . . 48-02 



1908 . . 41-53 1912 . . 41-52 



1909 . . 46-14 1913 . . 43-13 



The small fish landed from the dili'erent regions in lUlB were 

 roughly : 



From the Southern Grounds : 



From the B 3 area .... 3,700 tons. 



C2 „ . . . . 1,925 „ 



B2 „ . . . . 1,554 „ 



C3 „ . . . . 880 „ 



From the Small Plaice Grounds : 



From the A 3 area .... 880 tons. 

 B4 „ . . . 645 „ 



So the small plaice were nearly all from the south of the 

 North Sea. From all other grounds the landings of ' small ' 

 plaice were negligible in quantity, though the percentages 

 look high. 



For the explanation of this ' lettering ' the reader should 

 study the chart of the North Sea [Map i]. The letters are 

 affixed as follows : 



It must always be remembered that these statistics take no 

 account at all of ' small ' fish thrown overboard (many of 

 which must be dead), but only of ' small ' fish landed. In 



^ The ' Trade ' categories ' large ', ' medium ', and ' small ' do not help much. 

 Analysis shows that in Grimsby ' large ' fish mean anything between 9 and 

 28 inches. ' Medium ' fish are 9 to 13 inches ; and ' small ' fish from 5| to 

 11| inches. 



