15 
for the season. The latter part of July was marked by an irregular 
fishery of small catches. In the first days of August the catches 
improved a little, and about 3 per cent. of the vessels landed 20 
crans or over of good quality herrings, the majority of which were 
at stages IV. and V. of maturity. But these fish did not remain 
on the grounds, and the middle of the month was marked by 
small and irregular landings. <A slight improvement took place 
towards the end of the month, but in the beginning of September 
the fishery was so poor that some of the vessels fishing from North 
Shields had begun to fish the grounds off Whitby and Scarborough. 
The scarcity of herrings is well shown by a consideration of 
the daily average catches. 
CRANS. 
Week ending Mon. Tues, Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 
16th July +é ado 4-9 C2 8-1 12:4 4-6 3:0 
23rd July aoe sae 1-4 2:0 ils 1:6 2-4. 2: 
30th July ses ss 6:8 5-2 5-4 2-1 1-6 = 
6th August ia ies 12°3 5:9 57 2-6 18 -— 
13th August wa ait 4-4 8-2 6-6 3-3 ATE 2:8 
20th August ae 20 or 1:8 273 Bil 
The figures above show the catches made during some of the 
best weeks of the fishery. They emphasise the scarcity of the 
herrings, and indicate the presence of small shoals which were 
unable to yield even moderate supplies for more than one or two 
days in each week. For the weeks ending 30th July and 6th 
August it would appear that after the first night’s fishing the 
bulk of the herrings on the grounds had been caught or the others 
been scattered so much that a fleet of about 100 vessels was unable 
to find them in any numbers. 
No catch of spawning herrings from local grounds was seen 
during the season, but some were landed in the beginning of 
September from the grounds off Whitby. The evidence of 
spawning from ‘ spawny ”’ haddocks was small, as owing to the 
price ruling at the time there was no great incentive for trawler 
fishermen to search for them. Some “ spawny ” haddocks were 
caught about 7 miles north-east of the Longstone towards the 
end of August, and on Ist October landings were made from 50 
miles north-east of the Tyne. 
The samples from Lerwick, Wick and Peterhead in 1921 
show, if allowance be made for the fish being a year older, that 
