BARENTS SEA IN AUGUST, 1907. 89 



Whither the eggs drift, where the larval forms reach the coastal 

 shallows necessary for the development of young plaice, the life 

 history of tliese, and where they spend the long years before they 

 reach the outer grounds as mature fish, all afford highly interesting 

 subjects for future investigation. 



The pioneering trawlers have found that the plaice are smaller near 

 Cape Kanin, as would be expected, but neither here nor in the 

 entrance to the White Sea, has any great quantity of small fish been 

 found. A study of the Admiralty chart reveals the fact that west of 

 Long. 45° E., the water deepens from the coast comparatively rapidly ; 

 indeed, no extensive tracts of shallow water overlying a fine sandy 

 oottom such as characterize the small plaice nurseries in the North 

 Sea, are indicated until Long. 53° E. is passed. 



Thereafter to the eastward a long, broad area of fine sandy ground 

 extends across the wide mouth of the Pechora Elver. It is perhaps 

 significant that the glass balls which Norwegian fishermen employ in 

 connection with their fishing gear, have been found at the mouth of 

 this river.* This reminds us of the drift of derelict fish trunks from 

 our fishing fleets in the North Sea, which with other flotsam, find their 

 way on to the beaches of Holland, Germany, and Denmark, as do also 

 the early developing stages of the plaice. 



That this class of evidence is not without significance is shown by 

 the results of later scientific experiments with drift bottles,f by which 

 the trend of the surface currents in the North Sea has been deter- 

 mined. 



How THE Investigation of the Plaice Fisheey in the Barents 

 Sea may throw Light upon the Condition of that Fishery 

 in the North Sea. 



It is now desirable to see if from this mass of material from a 

 virgin fishing ground, we can gain any light upon the condition of the 

 plaice fishery in any comparable area of the North Sea. 



It must at the outset be recognized that many conditions of life 

 must differ vastly, and yet we have aspects from which this fishing 

 bank in the Barents Sea and the central grounds of the North Sea are 

 comparable as regards the plaice populations at present found on each. 



We have the sea bottom in both cases deepening from the coast, 

 whence we may take it the small plaice originate. Far out to sea the 



* Naxsen. Oceanogra^ithy of the North Polar Basin, Part II, p. 263. 



t Fulton. "The Currents of the North Sea and their Relation to Fisheries"; 

 Fifteenth Annual Report Fishery Board for Scotland, Part III, 1897. 



Garstang. " Report on the Surface Drift of the English Channel and Neighbouring 

 Seas during 1897," Journ. M. B. A., Vol. v. 



