OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 409 
boxes by the average number which a box of each class contains. 
In the case of “small” I have taken 250 as the average. The 
usual number is rather greater, and sometimes very much greater, 
if the fish are unusually small, but I prefer to run no risk of exag- 
geration in this matter. JI may say that I have never seen a box 
of small fish which would have numbered anything like 1056, but 
we have it, on the authority of Mr. Toozes, that at least one such 
box has been sold at Billngsgate.* I should say that 400 would 
be an extreme number for a Grimsby box. The same authority 
spoke (ibid.) of 40 to 45 being the contents of a good box of 
plaice, and I have often heard it said that a box of “large’’ fish 
contains about 50. The fact is, however, that nowadays a full box 
of so-called ‘‘large”’ plaice, taking one ground with another, 
averages about 100 fish; the idea of the smaller number being a 
tradition which dates from the times when really large fish were 
plentiful in the North Sea. 
Iceland plaice are of course much larger, especially when derived 
from the open grounds. ‘Thus a ten-stone box contains only about 
30 fish. The fish landed from Iceland in 1892 were almost all 
from the open grounds, and I accordingly used 30 as the average 
per box, but on account of the considerable number of smaller 
fish brought in from inshore grounds in subsequent years, I con- 
sidered 40 to be a safer average. 
It will be understood, of course, that the numbers of fish in the 
preceding table are those which are contained in the boxes sold as 
“large”? (including “ half”) and “small” respectively, and are 
not intended to represent the numbers of actually large and small 
fish landed. To arrive at that fact approximately we must have 
recourse to a further process of conversion. The boxes containing 
only ‘‘small” fish come, as we have seen, exclusively from the 
grounds on the Hastern side; and of the remainder, even of those 
in which the largest are only “half”? fish, all but a compara- 
tively insignificant proportion are derived from grounds other than 
the Hastern. 
The sizes of fish taken on these grounds differ considerably 
according to the ground, and on some grounds according to the 
time of year, but we shall be safe in saying that a box of “ large” 
contains, on an average, 30 per cent. of fish which fail to reach the 
biological standard of 17 inches, and 10 per cent. of fish which are 
less than 13 inches. I do not think it would be an exag- 
geration to say that there are 30 per cent. of actually immature 
fish, whether male or female, but it is difficult to make a perfectly 
reliable average, and that which I have formulated above, being 
* N.S.F.P.A., Rep. Conference, 1892, p. 11. 
