38 



MIGRATIONS OF THE DAB. 



By ALEXANDER MEEK. 



In the following table three further recaptures of the dabs 

 marked in 1913 are recorded. One of these, No. 1,356, which 

 we owe to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, was only 22 

 cms. when liberated, and measured at its recapture more than 

 a year afterwards 29 cms., and like the other immature members 

 of the Northumberland school of dabs, it had migrated to the 

 south. The others are large mature examples, measuring 36 and 

 37 cms., and in both cases they indicated a migration to the north. 

 In last year's report, several examples of such a migration were 

 recorded, and for the first time, because in previous years the 

 marking had been confined for the most part to small immature 

 fish. 



It will be necessary when times are more favourable to make 

 further experiments to obtain further facts, but in the meantime, 

 it is permissible to conclude, in the light of the facts obtained 

 by the Northumberland experiments and the earlier experiments 

 of Fulton, that the dabs migrate in the immature condition on 

 the north-east coast of England and the east coast of Scotland 

 in a southerly direction offshore for winter, and in a northerly 

 direction inshore for summer, and when mature they migrate 

 northwards. The spawning migrants, after spawning, appear 

 to migrate inshore, and probably migrate southwards before 

 maturity calls them to the north again. 



