470 REPORT ON TRAWLING AND OTHER INVESTIGATIONS 



the year. It is also clear that the numbers of immature medium-sized 

 plaice increased considerably in the summer of 1902 as compared with 

 1901 — a feature which we have already seen was characteristic of each 

 of the other bays. The influence of the winter emigrations from the 

 bay is clearly shown for all the groups of plaice of 8 inches and 

 upwards. 



These features are not dependent on the disproportionate combina- 

 tions of the stations in the different seasons, or on the inclusion of 

 Station IX. (which does not materially influence the figures for any 

 of the size-groups except the smallest). The influence of Station VII. 

 on the averages for the first summer season was much greater than for 

 the second, but its reduction to the same proportions merely reduces 

 the total average catch for the first season from 32 to 28, the figures for 

 the four size-groups becoming respectively 12, 6, 5, 5. 



For the study of minuter points than those mentioned above, how- 

 ever, it is impossible to reduce the quarterly figures to a comparable 

 basis of a reliable character owing to the small amount of trawling on 

 Station VII. in the second summer, and to the irregular character of 

 the midsummer records caused by the presence of drift-weed (of. 

 Tables C, D, hauls 2 and 29 on Station IX.). The most comparable 

 records in the two years are those for September, the hauls for which 

 month are limited to the inshore Stations VII. and VIII. It would 

 appear from Table E that while the number of 8-to-l 1-inch plaice 

 was twice as great in September, 1902, as in the same month of the 

 previous year, the numbers of the smallest fish were about the same. 

 These, however, as appears from the detailed Table D, were mostly 

 6- and 7-inch fish in the second year, with little admixture of 4-to- 

 5-inch fish, whereas in the first year there was a considerable number 

 of the latter. It would thus appear that in 1901 there was a greater 

 abundance of the smallest plaice than in 1902, a view confirmed by the 

 detailed records of the catches in July and August. As these smallest 

 plaice would, a year later, become 8-inch fish, and as fish of this size 

 preponderate in the 8-to-l 1-inch group, it is probable that the marked 

 increase in the numbers of the 8-to-l 1-inch group during 1902 should 

 be attributed to the abundance of 4- and 5 -inch fish in the previous 

 year. This conclusion has already been drawn in explanation of the 

 same phenomenon in Torbay. 



The increase of Dabs during the summer of 1902, which has already 

 been noticed in the case of Start Bay and Torbay, is equally con- 

 spicuous in the records for Teignmouth 13ay, as the following table 

 reveals : — 



