398 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
their parents. Once they reach the Dogger, they soon scatter ; but 
they can be traced through the later months in the considerable pro- 
portion of small fish which are found among the large ones on that 
ground in winter, and when the spawning season arrives no doubt 
some at least are mature. 
We see thus that up to a length of about 12 or 15 inches the North 
Sea plaice is inshore or estuarine in habitat ; beyond that the species, 
nowadays at least, is practically confined to offshore grounds. 
I spoke just now of a theory held by longshore fishermen of the 
reproduction of the plaice. These men are, or affect to be, totally 
unable to appreciate the fact that a fish may differ in its distribntion 
at different ages or sizes, and maintain that the plaice which they 
get in their bays or estuaries are a distinct race, to which they 
apply the names of “ flat-fish”’ or “ fluke,’ using them in the 
specific and not the commoner generic sense. The same contention 
is held on the Lancashire coast, in the Humber, and, as may be 
learned from the minutes of evidence before the Parliamentary 
Committee, further down the Lincolnshire coast. The fishermen’s 
arguments are various, not to say contradictory. The chief argument 
is that they never get these flat-fish as large as an offshore plaice, 
which, of course, is not remarkable. A most curious point some- 
times urged in favour of the theory is that the “ flat-fish”’ never 
have a roe in them. How they maintain their numbers without the 
use of a roe is not explained. It is true that in answer to a question 
on the subject, a fisherman from Skegness (Minutes of Hvidence, 
5041) said that ripe spawn was found in them in May and June. 
I take leave to suppose that this fact was “‘ wrenched from his 
imagination ;”’ and, indeed, the mental process by which it was arrived 
at becomes perfectly evident from the rest of his answer, viz. that 
after these months, in July, August, and September, there are 
multitudes of “‘ flat-fish ” of one, two, and three inches. Threatened 
with the imposition of a size limit for plaice, it is obviously in the 
interest of longshore trawlers and shrimpers to maintain the specific 
distinctness of the ‘“‘ flat-fish.”’ 
Though most acknowledge, and all, I suppose, must be aware 
that spawn is never found in these small fish, there is no lack of 
information, of a kind, as to their life-history. On the sandy 
stretches between tide-marks in spring and summer one finds a 
number of gelatinous greenish or brownish capsules, attached to 
the sand by the insertion of a long filament. These things, which 
are well known to naturalists as the spawn of a marine worm, are 
strenuously asserted by the longshore fishermen to be that of their 
“flat-fish.” No attempt, however, is made to. dispose of the 
interval between the unhatched spawn and the fully metamorphosed 
