POST-LARVAL TELEOSTEANS COLLECTED NEAR PLYMOUTH. 2a 
Table II, showing the Number of Hauls made with the Young-fish 
Trawl in each month for each of the years from 1906 to 1914 in which 
investigations were carried on. 
MontHity NUMBER oF HAULS. 
1906. 1907. 1908. 1909. 1913. 1914. Total. 
March ~~~. ; oo 2 = = = — 2 
April oo 2 ~~ 2 — 3 7 
May eo — 4 5 —- 13 30 
June AO 2 31 12 23 28 106 
July See: 4 10 9 29 38 94 
August. = — 9 10 D4 2 75 
September : pe bal 77 1 85 
October. ; a Tl — — - 13 = 14 
November _ — —- -— - 9 —- 9 
CLUPEID. 
As in the previous years the Clupeidz show a very marked maximum 
frequency in May and the first half of June. A considerable number of 
specimens have been stained and the vertebre counted. In all cases 
these have proved to be sprats, and there seems no doubt that the sprat 
constitutes by far the greater proportion of the specimens taken during 
the months in which the 1914 material was collected. This is rendered 
more probable by the fact that the abundance of black pigment in the 
neighbourhood of the anus, which Ehrenbaum considers to be one of 
the distinguishing characters of post-larval sprats, was observed in 
nearly all the specimens examined. Unfortunately im the present state 
of our knowledge of the early stages of the different species of Clupea, 
the detection of a few specimens of C. harengus or C. pilchardus amongst 
the large quantities of C. sprattus which are caught in the young-fish 
trawl is from a practical point of view impossible, the labour involved 
in staining and counting the vertebrae of so many specimens being 
altogether out of proportion to the value of the information which would 
be gained. 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. XI. NO. 2. MAY, 1917. M 
