396 MACKEKEL AND SUNSHINE. 



years 1902-1908, as well as similar figures for three sailing drifters. 

 These figures are given in Tables I. and II. 



Messrs. Peacock's figures show that by far the largest quantities of 

 mackerel are landed in the month of May, and that, as in the case of 

 the official statistics (cf. Bullen, loc. cit., p. 277), the figures representing 

 the May landings dominate the curve representing the total landings 

 from the spring fishing. Moreover, it is practically certain that the 

 vessels fished throughout May, whereas for the other months, except, 

 perhaps, April, one has not generally any definite knowledge as to when 

 they began or ended their fishing. 



In the diagram below (Fig. 1) the average number of mackerel per 



HUNDREDS 



■HRS. 0'" MACKEREL 



SUN| ■ — ~~ — lIN MAY 



700 

 275 



- 600 



v^ \ \ 



250 - 



H 500 



f ^ ■ ^ 



225 \- 



-qoo 



200h 



300 



175 h 



200 



4902 1903 1901 1905 1906 Qor (908 



Fig. 1. — The dotted line indicates the average number of hours of bright sunshine re- 

 corded for the months of February and March, in each of the j^ears 1902-1908, 

 at the meteorological stations at Plymouth, Falmc '^h, and Scilly. 



The continuous line indicates the average number of "hundreds" (120 fish) 

 of mackerel per boat landed at Newlyn and Milford in the month of May of 

 the same years 1902-1908, by three steam drifters belonging to Messrs. 

 Peacock & Co., of Lowestoft. 



boat in "hundreds" (each "hundred" really means 120 fish) landed in 

 May by Messrs. Peacock's three steam drifters is represented by the 

 continuous line, whilst the number of hours bright sunshine during 

 February and March is represented by the dotted line. The sunshine 

 figures were obtained by taking the average of the number of hours 



