41 



3.— DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES OTHER THAN PLAICE 



AND DAB. 



It will be seen later that Northumberland does not stand 

 alone with respect to the distribution of the plaice and dab, but 

 it will help us to understand the problem if we first consider the 

 other species Ave capture at our experiments on the Northumberland 

 coast. 



Too much stress certainly cannot be laid on small catches 

 of prime flat fish, but so far as it goes the evidence points to turbot 

 and brill being more common in the north, soles in the south, and 

 the catches of the inshore fishermen agree with this. The flounder 

 is generally distributed, although as a rule scarce in the districts 

 trawled in, but it also may be said to predominate in the north, 

 as is evidenced from this year's catches. It is natural to expect 

 that the attraction to fresh or brackish water would produce an 

 effect, and as a fact flounders occur in fair numbers, for example, 

 in certain years in Alnmouth Bay and in Blyth Bay. 



Flounder. — Tables XL and XII. give the numbers caught 

 per hour's trawling during the years of the complete experiment 

 and the years of the detailed records. The species only rarely 

 appears in the region of the trawling stations, and, it will be 

 observed, may be absent altogether during a day's visit to one of 

 the stations. But in Table XL the figures for flounders for the 

 first four years are doubtful. The marketable flounders were 

 obtained most commonly at Skate Roads and at Alnmouth, and 

 the flounder exhibits, generally speaking, like its congeners, a 

 rise and fall during the summer. During the winter a few largo 

 flounders weie obtained at Druridge Bay and Blyth Bay, but 

 they were absent from Alnmouth. It will be noticed that the 

 young, which were only represented in numbers on a few 

 occasions, were confined practically to the southern bays, and 

 from this point of view (Table XII.) the distribution centres at 

 Alnmouth. The distribution then has the peculiarity that the 

 large sizes predominate in and characterise the northern part 

 of the- coast, including Goswick, while the young are more con- 

 spicuously present in the south. The district as a whole xeceives 

 in addition spent fish. It will be observed also that if a change 



