DISTRIBUTION OF FISH AND OTHER ANIMALS. 31 
specimens are also frequently found in the inshore grounds in quantity in autumn, as, for 
example, in the sandy bays and in the channels between the banks, where they come to feed ; 
but the first severe frost in winter drives them away. They either burrow more deeply in the 
sand, or move off shore altogether to deeper water. These large fish are then ‘filling up” 
with spawn, and at the end of the year, and in January, are found congregating on the 
spawning banks far out from land. Our chief areas in the Irish Sea where the plaice spawns 
are midway between Lancashire and the Isle of Man, and to the south and west of the 
Isle of Man, at depths of from 20 to 30 or 4o fathoms. It is on these and other off-shore grounds 
that the chief fishery for large plaice by the deep-sea trawlers takes place. 
FIG. 9—Shrimping with a “ Push-net,” 
