IN THE BAYS ON THE SOUTH-EAST COAST OF DEVON. 451 



" The rocks which break up the trawling area of the bay lie in the 

 south-west corner oft' Hallsands and Beesands and along the northern 

 shore from Blackpool to the Mewstone on the far side of Dartmouth 

 Fairway. To the south-west of Blackpool is a further patch of rocks, 

 and off Torcross there is a shelving bank of slate-rock, running about a 

 mile out to sea, with several isolated rocks near it. Since all these lie 

 within or close to the zone of the coarse sand, and the plaice prefer this 

 kind of soil, it may be well understood that the largest and strongest 

 plaice are safe from the trawler, except when they are migrating 

 from one region to another. There are one or two passages between 

 the rocks close inshore, as well as open spaces at Blackpool and along 

 Slapton Sands, and it is on these grounds that the large plaice are 

 obtained. 



"The inner passages are only known to the older fishermen who 

 worked in Start Bay before the by-laws came into force, and the 

 Oitliona could not work there. The largest plaice are not truly 

 represented in the statistics for this reason, and their presence would 

 have remained unknown had we not ventured on several occasions 

 to trawl closer to the rocks than was altogether good for the nets." 



The total number of hauls of the trawl recorded for Start Bay 

 amounts to seventy, and, as may be gathered from Table E, they were 

 distributed through the successive months of the year with fair uni- 

 formity, the only month which is altogether unrepresented being March. 

 Since the ground varies in character in different parts of the bay, the 

 hauls have been classified into four stations, which approximately 

 correspond with these natural distinctions. They have been defined as 

 follows : — 



Station I. The central and north-eastern parts of the bay. In 

 practice an attempt was made to distinguish between these two parts 

 as follows : — 



Sub-station (i). " Centre of the bay ; along the line Mewstone Rock, 

 to the east of Dartmouth just inside Downend Point, to Freshwater Bay 

 near Start Point. The trawl was shot in 12 to 15 fathoms, and lifted 

 as a rule in 8 to 9 fathoms after passing Torcross, The bottom-soil 

 is mud to fine sand " (H. M. K.). 



Sub-station (ii). " The north-eastern triangle of the Bay, formed by 

 the Mewstone, Blackpool, and Skerries Buoy. The depth varies from 

 10 to 20 fathoms, and the bottom-soil is for the most part mud " 

 (H. M. K). 



The hauls referred to these sub-stations by Dr. Kyle have been dis- 

 tinguished in the detailed list of hauls (p. 503) ; but they have not been 

 separated in the summary tables, since considerable overlapping took 



NEW SERIES. — VOL. VI. XO. 4. 2 H 



