66 THE IMMATURE FISH QUESTION. 
for lemon soles was 11 inches in total length. Of the specimens 
included in the above table 100 were under that size and 120 over—that 
is to say, 45 per cent. of the number were under 11 inches in length. 
This, however, may not represent accurately the average proportion 
among all the fish of this kind landed. I will give, therefore, the 
results of observations which I made during a three days’ trip on 
board a trawler at the beginning of March. We were trawling off 
Dodman Point in Cornwall, a ground where merry soles are usually 
abundant. We took 264 of these fish altogether. None of these 
were immature, and none were returned to the sea as unsaleable ; the 
smallest was 7 inches long, 179 of these were over 11 inches in length, 
85 were under that length. That is to say, 32 per cent. of the 
merry soles caught were under the proposed limit. Merry soles 
form a very important part of the total catch of a trawler fishing 
out of Plymouth, and they fetch a very good price. There would 
be the strongest opposition on the part of Plymouth trawlers to a 
proposal that they should be compelled to throw away 32 per cent. 
of the merry soles they catch. 
The smallest merry sole I have ever obtained at Plymouth was 6°4 
inches long, and this was a perfectly ripe male. As far as my expe- 
rience goes, smaller specimens than this are never caught either by 
deep sea trawlers or any other kind of fishing-boats. 
The merry sole or lemon sole is not a large fish. The largest 
obtained by Dr. Fulton on the east coast of Scotland was 18 inches 
long. Ihave not yet seen any at Plymouth over 17 inches in length, 
and no males over 16 inches. 
On the south coast merry soles, large or small, are not captured by 
any boats, or very exceptionally, other than the deep sea trawlers, 
and they are only found in abundance at a considerable distance from 
the coast. The inshore waters, which yield often plenty of plaice, 
supply very few merry soles. Neither the full-grown nor the young 
of this species are taken in any numbers in territorial waters on 
British coasts. The evidence available shows that the young lemon 
soles when they first go to the bottom, instead of seeking the shore as 
young plaice do, travel in the opposite direction, and pass the first 
period of their lives at depths greater than those where the adults 
abound. Dr. Fulton, in his systematic search on the coast of Scotland, 
obtained only four specimens as small as 2 inches, although he 
obtained 64 out of a total of 195 under 8 inches. On the west coast 
of Ireland, the Irish Survey of 1890-91, obtained three specimens 
11 inches long at depths of fifty-two to sixty fathoms. Mr. Holt 
has, however, recently found that young lemon soles 2 to 4 inches 
in length are not rare in the estuary of the Humber inautumn. But 
these were not in large numbers, the greatest number caught in one 
