NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 113 



coast usually affords some return, while off the Norfolk and Suffolk 

 coasts, the conditions favourable to long-lining do not exist. 



I was told by a fish buyer that there were only eighteen sailing 

 trawlers and nine or ten steamers belonging to Scarborough, and 

 most of these were landing their fish elsewhere during the herring 

 season. The fish trade at Scarborough Harbour is of no great 

 extent, and when herrings are being landed there is very little market 

 for trawl fish, the salesmen and buyers being unable to spare much 

 attention for them. Many of the steamers are old paddle boats, but 

 there are a few modern screw trawlers. 



So far as I could ascertain the question of immature fish does 

 not present itself in an acute form at Scarborough. Inshore trawling 

 has been prohibited by a bye-law of the North-Eastern Committee. 

 When I was there no hand-net shrimping was being carried on, the long- 

 shore men being more profitably employed in taking out visitors to sail 

 or to fish in the " cobles " and " mules," as the local shore boats are 

 called. The trawlers fish for the most part in the neighbourhood of the 

 port, on the Scarborough Off Ground, where, the depths being from 30 

 to 40 fathoms, the fish chiefiy taken are large plaice, lemon soles, 

 and haddocks. Plaice, from the German side or Eastern Grounds 

 are not landed at Scarborough. Fishing for soles by hook and line is a 

 remarkable local feature, not to be met with, I believe, anywhere else. 

 I did not gain any personal experience of this mode of fishing, concern- 

 ing which a good deal of information was indirectly given by Mr. Holt 

 in his account of the Territorial Fishing Grounds of Scarborough in this 

 Journal, Vol. III., p. 176. I ascertained, however, from one of the 

 practitioners, that the instruments used are long lines, furnished with 

 hooks at intervals, and set after sunset in the evening. The lines 

 are of course on a much smaller scale in every way than those used in 

 deep-sea work for larger fish. I examined the hooks, and found them 

 to be 1 in. long and f in. from the shank to the barb. The peculiar 

 character of the narrow sandy wykes, supporting a numerous popula- 

 tion of annelids, and so attracting numbers of soles in the summer 

 season, is perhaps the reason of the development of line fishing for 

 soles in this locality. 



A Fishery Exhibition was held at Scarborough last season, and I had 

 the pleasure of giving a short lecture at it daily for a week. It was 

 organized by Mr. J. W. Woodall, and occupied a wooden building, 

 specially erected for the purpose in that gentleman's grounds on the 

 foreshore. Among the exhibits were a model of Captain Dannevig's 

 Areudal Fish Hatchery, and the collection of various stages of marine 

 food fishes and marine animals, specially mounted for exhibition by our 

 Association. 



