OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 379 
number of forms distinguished from the rest by having ciliated 
scales, though in some cases the cilia were but little developed ; in 
fact every intermediate condition was represented, and, as it proved 
on inspection, the ciliation was most thoroughly developed in, and 
almost confined to, the males. The ciliated examples, known to 
science since the days of Gottsche, had been considered to be a 
distinct variety, but it became evident that the distinction was only 
sexual. The females, not as a rule ciliated, are the “ Goldbutt ” of 
Gottsche, and of Baltic fishermen of the present day, who recognise 
them as quite distinct from the larger North Sea fish which enter 
the Sound at certain seasons of the year. ‘They are not so distinct 
in outward appearance from small plaice of the North Sea type as to 
altogether escape a risk of confusion, but from the fortunate pecu- 
liarity of the males we get a knowledge of the distribution of the 
variety as a whole. The males (formerly regarded as Pl. platessa, 
var. pseudoflesus) are stated by Continental naturalists to be com- 
monest in the Baltic and in the Sound, but they have been observed 
also at Hastholm, and are therefore not altogether unknown in the 
North Sea. They occur, as I presume, in the eastern fjords of 
Denmark, and as the Lim Fjord has an opening at either end, there 
is nothing improbable in their occasional appearance in the North Sea 
through that channel. Further, Gottsche saw them in the Hamburg 
market, though that is no proof that they were North Sea specimens, 
since my own had passed through the Hamburg market before 
making their appearance at Grimsby. 
It will have appeared that there is nothing very improbable in the 
occasional appearance of a dwarf plaice of the Baltic type in the 
North Sea, and I beheve that any very small spawning fish that 
have been caught by our boats would have been easily recognised as 
belonging to the Baltic variety had they come under the notice of a 
naturalist. At the same time I unhesitatingly assert that the small 
fish that are caught in such numbers on the Danish and Dutch 
coasts do not belong to the smaller variety, but are immature 
members of the North Sea variety. I have examined hundreds of 
them taken from all parts of the coast, and have never found one of 
the smaller type amongst them. The possible objection that, the 
season for the Eastern grounds being later than the spawning season, 
I may have been deceived in my diagnosis (of maturity or immaturity) 
by such a reversion to an apparently immature condition as Cun- 
ningham appears to think possible, can fortunately be met. Our 
own boats only fish the Kastern grounds in the late spring and 
summer, since it is only at that time that there is any certainty of 
finding a good supply of fish ; foreign steam-trawlers, however, some- 
times fish there much earlier, and, as they often land their catch at 
