Trawling on the Solway. 197 



seasons of the year they sometimes ascend above the brackish 

 waters of the estuaries, and I have frequently seen them a mile 

 or two above the influence of salt water. They feed on worms 

 and mollusea and crustacea, varying their diet considerably at 

 different seasons. In the Autumn they frequent ground where 

 young cockles or mussels may be had, and it is at this season that 

 they are most easily caught by the trawler. As has been already 

 mentioned, it is not an unheard thing for a smack to take forty 

 stones in a tide. The flounder is very prolific; it sheds its spawn 

 in the Spring, and the young hatch off very rapidly. For some 

 time they are transparent, and, extraordinary to relate, they begin 

 life not as flat fish in the ordinary meaning of the term, but as 

 upright swimming fish with an eye on each side of the head. The 

 eye on the side which is eventually to be the under side gradually 

 changes its position, working its way round to what will eventu- 

 ally be the upper side when the flounder assumes a horizontal 

 position. • . 



Plaice do not breed in shallow waters, but they do not seek 

 the deep waters of the open sea ; a moderate depth of from ten to 

 twenty fathoms seems to suit them best. In Summer time they 

 are found in the shallow waters, and their feeding habits are much 

 the same as those of the flounder. They spawn in late winter 

 and early spring, and they are very prolific. Frank Buckland 

 counted 144,600 eggs in a plaice weighing 4 lbs. 15 oz. The 

 plaice taken by the Solway trawl boats are not as a rule very 

 large, and anything over one pound is considered a nice fish, 

 though specimens as heavy as six pounds have been taken. 



The sole is the most valuable of all the fish found in the 

 Solway, weight for weight, excepting salmon early in the season. - 

 But though salmon can occasionally be had for 6d and 8d a 

 pound, I have never known soles less than Is a pound in value, 

 wholesale. Unfortunately, soles are yearly becoming scarcer. 

 They come to us from deep water, arriving in Summer and 

 remaining till fairly late in the Autumn. The enormous destruc- 

 tion of soles, young and old, by the steam trawlers probably has 

 something to do with the scarcity in the Solway, for it is clear that 

 a deep water fish migrating to our firth only for a few months must 

 be affected by the general decrease in deeper water, and this 

 decrease is admitted on all hands. Soles, unlike the other flat 

 fish, make a definite attempt to escape from the trawl by squeezing 



