83 



The same year class shows a shortage for three consecutive 

 years. 



The sample of 9th March, 1921, is the first sample we have 

 examined from the Yarmouth spring fishery. It contained three 

 fish only which were not spents or recovering spents, and its age 

 composition is very like that of the sample of 17th November, 

 1920, except for the high percentage of fish with eight winter rings. 

 An indication of this high number of fish with eight winter rings 

 is given, however, in the sample of 6th November, 1919, in which 

 fish with six winter rings were more plentiful than those with five 

 winter rings. 



The samples of 1920 and 1921 both contained a very low 

 percentage of fish which in 1920 had three winter rings. Whilst 

 this may be due to some extent to the small number of herrings 

 examined, it supports the opinion already expressed with regard 

 to the shortage of fish with three winter rings in the fisheries of 

 the Northumberland coast and the east coast of Scotland. 



The samples of winter herrings caught in 1921 can be divided 

 into two classes, those containing a high percentage of young 

 fish, and those in which older fish formed a more important portion 

 of the samples. 



The samples containing large numbers of young fish came from 

 Stornoway and the Firth of Forth. They are of little use for the 

 purposes of the age composition of the older fish, though the 

 sample caught off Cellar Head and that from the Firth of Forth 

 point to a shortage of fish with six winter rings. Their chief value 

 lies in the high percentage of fish with three winter rings, and they 

 indicate, as did the samples of last year from the same localities, 

 that both Broad Bay and the Firth of Forth are the home of a large 

 number of young herrings during the winter months. 



From the age composition of the samples and the growth 

 data it was stated that in 1920 more than one shoal of herrings 

 frequented the waters of the Firth of Forth during the early months 

 of the year, and it was hoped this year to obtain further evidence 



