OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 405 
&c.—grounds which a glance at the chart will show to be exactly 
on the line from the small-fish grounds to the Dogger,—and there 
capture a considerable quantity of small plaice. There may be an 
admixture of larger fish, but the bulk and often the entire catch 
consists of plaice measuring from 12 to 14 inches. There was no 
quantity of such small fish on the off-shore grounds before, and 
they correspond exactly to the largest sizes of the fish on the 
Eastern grounds, while the time corresponds to that at which the 
“body” of the small fish disappear from these grounds. The 
fishermen consider that they are travelling some whither, and not 
feeding at the locality of capture; and of the nature of their migra- 
tion I think there can be no manner of doubt. What chiefly con- 
cerns us here is the evidence of a large destruction at a certain 
season of the year of (practically exclusively) immature fish on 
grounds which lie some fifty or sixty miles from the nearest 
land. 
The following table gives, I believe, a very nearly exact account of 
the plaice landed from the 1st April, 1893. I cannot speak as to 
the accuracy of the total amounts previous to that date, as my own 
statistical inquiries, from January, 1892, to April, 1898, only dealt 
with the “small” fish. In order to get the other amounts for the 
earlier period I was obliged to make use of the official returns, what- 
ever they may be worth, arriving at the amounts of “large 7 by, 
subtracting my own account of the “ small,” and in June, July, 
and August, 1892, deducting an amount estimated as the product of 
the Iceland fishery. For this purpose I deducted only 800 boxes. 
The number was probably larger, but as I had not kept an exact 
account of them I preferred to be on the safer side. 
My own returns in this table deal only with fish landed by deep- 
sea trawlers. The Board of Trade figures presumably include also 
whatever plaice are landed at or sent to the market by shrimpers 
and other long-shore fishermen, which I have preferred to deal with 
separately. I also exclude from this table any fish which have been 
consigned to the market from abroad, or, to my knowledge, from 
other British ports, since such can have no possible bearing on the 
Grimsby fishery; but I do not see how the official returns, being 
based on quantities despatched from the market by rail, can possibly 
distinguish between fish landed by fishing vessels, and those which 
arrive at the market by any other means. Consequently the total 
amounts previous to April, 1893, being taken from official returns, 
are rather different in scope, as well as in method of collection, from 
those from April, 1893, onwards ; but the amount so excluded from 
my own returns is not sufficient to make any considerable difference. 
I should add that there is one large fleet belonging to Grimsby, which 
