16 NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 



it will be possible to ascertain with certainty whether an immature ovary 

 can contain these granular masses. In the meantime it is not certain 

 that this fish, and others like it, are immature, and have not already 

 spawned. The remaining two specimens, 16| in. and 17f in. long, were 

 ripe males. This length, IG^ in., was about the smallest of these Fisher 

 Bank plaice, and it follows that these were chiefly mature plaice in the 

 breeding condition. The stomachs of all were empty, or very nearly so ; 

 in the intestines of some were a few crushed shells, the remains of 

 previous meals. 



On February 16th, I found that most of the fish landed was from the 

 home grounds. There are at Grimsbv a number of rather small steam 

 trawlers, which never remain out more than a week, and confine their 

 operations within a limit of about 100 miles from Spurn Light. I 

 noticed that the greater number of the plaice landed were rather small, 

 not forming separate boxes of " small," but each box containing a large 

 number of small at the bottom, with a few large fish on the top. I 

 examined a sample of the smaller. There were seven females, from 

 11| in. to 14| in. long. One 12i in. was nearly ripe, a large number of 

 the eggs already transparent, that is to say, almost ready to be shed. 

 All the others had small ovaries, in appearance immature, but in 

 all of them under the microscope the opaque granular masses were 

 very conspicuous. Even the smallest fish, 11| in. long, had the 

 ovary in this condition. It seems probable that all these were spent 

 fish. There were six males, the smallest 10| in. long, the largest 

 16 in. This last was the only one ripe, in all the others the testis 

 was very thin, and would, I suppose, have been put down by 

 previous observers as immature, but in my opinion were more prob- 

 ably spent. I did not ascertain more particularly where these fish 

 were caught. 



On February 27th I saw the fish landed from a steamer which had 

 been fishing off the Lenian Shoal, at a depth of 12 to 17 fathoms. She 

 had so many small plaice that they formed 7i separate boxes, in addition 

 to 35 i boxes of fish of the usual sizes. I bought a whole box of these 

 small plaice, the price of which was 16s. 6d. The box contained 212 

 fish, the smallest a little over 7 in., the largest between 13 and 14 in. 

 The small plaice from the Eastern Grounds, according to jMr. Holt, 

 were about 300 to a box, the majority from 7 to 13 in. long. It 

 is evident, therefore, that the plaice here considered are within the 

 same limits of size as the eastern small, but apparently a little 

 larger on the average. Examination showed that there were 186 

 males, and only 26 females. The condition of the males may be 

 thus shown : — 



