LEMON SOLES 



149 



Following on this, Storrow obtained the scales from the 

 remains of fifty-six lemon soles which had been filleted. These 

 he examined with the following result : 



Inches. Inches. 



Fish, 4 years old, ranging from 9-8 to 12-2 averaged 10-2 



Here is quite a wealth of information ^ obtained by a naturahst 

 from the waste portion of lemon soles. It cost him practically 

 nothing. It was available because he was working in close 

 proximity to a fishing-port, and in that intimate co-operation 

 with fish-catchers which is the tradition of his laboratory. He 

 was able further from this material to calculate that the average 

 growth in the first three years would have been : 



1 year old from 1-6 inches to 4-3 



2 years old from 3-1 inches to 7-9 



3 years old from 5-9 inches to ll'S 



All this bears out Williamson's observations as to the slow 

 rate of growth. But one great lesson of scale reading is that 

 size is not a reliable index to the age of a fish. A 15 -inch lemon 

 sole, for instance, may be anything from five to twelve years old. 

 The smallest ripe female caught by Holt was S inches long. She 

 may have been two or three years old. The smallest ripe male 

 caught by Cunningham was 6-4 inches long, and was probably 

 also two or three years old. But no conclusions as to the 

 hatching, growth, maturity, spawning, and senescence of 

 fishes will be really reliable unless they are based on systematic 

 scale reading ; and scales can be read only by the aid of the 

 microscope. Storrow's material was obviously enough very 

 limited. There seems to be no reason at all why w^ork on these 

 lines should not be carried out on a really big scale every year. 

 The work is cheap. It is not particularly attractive. It does 

 not involve expenditure on steamers, or even on sea-going 

 fish-measurers. But, extended and systematized, it might in 



1 Does the table not indicate that it is advisable to kill ofif as many as possible 

 of the fish over nine years old — the age at which they begin to ' go back * ? 



