84 NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 
the greatest credit for the large degree of accuracy which I believe 
to exist in their returns, 
These returns deal with values and weights only, but the latter 
can easily be converted into boxes, the term of which I have hitherto 
made use in these reports. Nine stone may be taken as the average 
weight of fish in a box packed in the ordinary manner for sale in 
the market, that is with the fish piled to some height above the top 
of the box. A box which is only filled up to the top is spoken of 
as a “level.” No other measures are now in use in the Grimsby 
market, turbot, brill, and halibut, and large round-fish being sold 
either separately, or in the rows in which they are laid out when 
first landed. Inferior fish, such as gurnards, are generally sold in 
heaps. 
The subjoined table gives the figures arrived at by accepting the 
Board of Trade totals expressed in the first column, They are 
intended here to comprise only North Sea fish. 
5 
Tea a 2. | polabae ‘+ Lae 
Month. Hokly Osht Patel pumbes eae ceamall” © Other boxes. seen a 
fish. No. 3. 
April : ; 11,000 Dia 1,836 7,941 18 
May. : : 12,000 10,666 830 9,836 7 
*June 4 4 10,400 9,244 3,470 5,774 38 
*July. : ; 17,000 UB yall 2,059 | 13,052 13 
*August . : 10,600 9,422 1,924 7,498 24 
September ‘ 15,000 13,333 | 1,184 12,149 8 
October . | 20,000 17,777 — | 295 | 17,482 rf 
| { | 
It will be noticed on consulting columns 3 and 5 that the 
gradual diminution of the actual numbers of boxes of “ small” 
is not accompanied by a similarly regular decline in the same item 
when converted into percentages of the total. This is, I think, 
to some extent due to my having deducted too little for the 
Iceland fishery in July and August; but there must also be other 
causes, of which I have no knowledge. Apart from abundance or 
scarcity of fish there must always be some irregularity in the supply, 
as individual boats are constantly shifting from the pursuit of one 
species to that of another, according to the luck or inclination of the 
skippers. 
It must be borne in mind that the boxes of ‘small ” are very far 
from exhausting the number of undersized fish brought to market. 
* In June, July, and August I have deducted 1000 cwt. from the Board of Trade totals 
as representing a very moderate estimate of 800 boxes, in this case packed so as to contain 
10 st., derived from the Iceland grounds, and therefore not products of the North Sea 
Fishery proper. 
