KECENT REPORTS OF FISHERY AUTHORITIES. 371 



mature until they are 13 or 14 inches long, and lemon soles not until 

 they reach a length of 9 or 10 inches.* 



"The consequence of this difference in the length when sexual 

 maturity is first reached in the two groups is that all adult plaice and 

 lemon soles, and large numbers which have not yet reached maturity, 

 which enter an ordinary trawl net, cannot escape through the meshes, 

 and are captured : while large numbers of adult dabs of both species, 

 and by far the greater proportion of the immature, do escape through 

 the meshes of the net, and are therefore not caught. In other words, 

 the ordinary beam-trawl is not anything like so destructive to dabs as 

 to plaice and lemon soles. The special experiments made on the 

 Garlaiid bring out this matter in a marked manner.f 



" Thus in 43 hauls of the Garland's ordinary net, having meshes in 

 the cod-end of 1| inches from knot to knot, 2705 plaice of all sizes 

 were retained in the net, and only 67 escaped through the meshes; 

 among lemon soles 371 were retained, and 154 escaped; among common 

 dabs 3367 were retained and 9892 escaped ; and among long rough 

 dabs 506 were retained, and 2562 passed through the meshes. Of the 

 67 plaice which escaped, 59 were 7 inches or less in length, and only 

 8 above that size (8 inches); of the 154 lemon soles none were above 

 7 inches ; of the 9892 common dabs which found their way out of tlie 

 net, 2086 were 6 inches or over — that is to say, of adult size — and 5426 

 were 5 inches in length, or about the size at which maturity is reached ; 

 of the 2562 long rough dabs which escaped, 1238 were 5 inches or 

 over. 



" The other point is also of importance, namely, the place where the 

 fishes spawn ; and the information on this subject obtained by the 

 Garland is of great value. :J; The plaice and the lemon sole spawn 

 outside the territorial waters, and therefore beyond the limits of the 

 closed areas. All the plaice and almost all the lemon soles in the Firth 

 of Forth and St. Andrews Bay come in from the outer waters, their 

 floating pelagic eggs, or their equally helpless larva?, being borne in by 

 the currents ; or some may have migrated thither at a later stage. The 

 abundance of these forms in the closed areas is therefore strictly and 

 directly dependent on the outer seas. It is not the same with the dabs. 

 They seem to spawn indifferently in the closed and in the open waters, 

 although spawniug individuals are rather more numerous in the latter. 



• " Vide ' Observations on the Reproduction, Maturity, and Sexual Relations of the 

 Food-Fishes,' Part III., Tenth Annual Ilcport, p. 232." 



t "Fide 'The Capture and Destruction of Immature Sea Fishes,' Part III., 'The 

 Relation between the Size of the Mesh of Trawl Nets and the Fish Captured,' Pari III., 

 Twelfth Annual lleport, p. 302." 



X "Vide 'The Spawning and Spawning-Places of Marine Food -Fishes,' Part III., 

 Eifjhth Anniud Report, p. 257; also Part III., Tenth Annual Report, p. 235." 



