446 llEPOKT ON TKAWLING AND OTHER INVESTIGATIONS 



species and the one on which the fishermen are mostly dependent. 

 Some notion of the numbers caught throughout the year may be 

 obtained from the subjoined tables. Accuracy is not claimed for these 

 figures, because the approximations made are even greater than in the 

 case of the plaice. As with the latter, whiting are brought to market 

 in trunks and small baskets. Their size varies from 9 to 17 inches, and 

 all sizes may be placed in the trunks, whilst the small baskets seldom 

 contain any over 11 inches. It is necessary, therefore, to state the 

 proportion of small whiting which are placed in the trunks. 



The following proportions are based on personal experience and 

 checked by information from fishermen and fish buyers. The whiting 

 may be divided into three classes — "small" from 9 to 11 inches, 

 "medium" from 11 to 14, and "large" above 14 inches. Only the 

 small are placed in the baskets, each of which holds 36 on the average. 

 The great majority of the fish in the trunks are also small, and in 

 the tables one half of the trunks are allocated to the small fish, 

 the multiplier used being 350.* The resultant product is added 

 on to the quantity in the small baskets, and the total given in the 

 last column. 



Large whiting are never very plentiful nowadays, and it has been 

 calculated that they are adequately represented by y^th of the trunks. 

 A trunk contains about 130 large whiting, so that the numbers in the 

 second column are obtained by dividing the number of trunks by 

 10 and multiplying the remainder by 130, or more simply by multiply- 

 the number of trunks by 13. When /(jths of the trunks are thus 

 disposed of for the small and large whiting, fths remain for the 

 medium-sized. A trunk holds from 150 to 250 medium-sized whiting, 

 and the number chosen as the average is 200. Consequently if the 

 number of trunks be multiplied by | x 200, or more simply by 80, 

 we get the total number of medium-sized whiting. 



The numbers of whiting given in Table A speak for themselves ; it is 

 only necessary to mention that the great decrease during March to June 

 is at the spawning time. It thus appears that the whiting are in mid- 

 water, or, at least, not on the bottom when spawning. For the rest of 

 the year the numbers per month are fairly constant, the highest record 

 being in December (over 700,000) and the lowest in February (315,000). 



There is little difficulty in ascertaining approximately the number 

 of soles landed day by day, because, as already stated, they are laid 

 out in pairs on the market. The data in Table A may therefore be 

 regarded as fairly accurate. Few soles were obtained during March 

 and April, and as these months form their spawning season it seems 

 that, like the whiting, they disappear temporarily from the grounds 



• That is to say, each trunk is taken to contain 175 small whiting on an average.— W. 0. 



