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over.88 per cent. of the whole, while the South coast yields 
6 per cent. and the Irish Sea only 5 per cent. It is gene- 
rally believed, however, that these official returns of the 
Board of Trade are imperfectly collected, and the above 
figures are to be regarded as minimum values. Accurate 
returns of the numbers of fish landed at Grimsby in one 
year alone are furnished by Holt.* For the year ending 
March, 1894, over 174 millions of fish were landed at that 
port. Most of these fish were caught in the North Sea, a 
small proportion only in Iceland waters. 
We have seen that the Plaice, like other Pleuronectid 
fishes, is a permanent bottom living fish, has a compara- 
tively limited distribution, and a range of migration which 
is relatively small. On account of these habits it is pecu- 
harly liable to capture by present means of fishing, and 
at no stage in its life history from the metamorphosis 
onwards does it go outside the range of the fisherman’s 
operations. While yet on the nurseries it is caught by 
the shrimp trawler, on the inshore grounds it has become 
marketable and is caught in the stake and trawl nets, and 
in the open seas, when mature, it becomes the prey of the 
deep sea trawler. In many of these respects it contrasts 
with the commoner round fishes, such as the herring, cod 
or mackerel. While it is generally agreed that the supply 
of the last named fishes is practically inexhaustible, it 
seems no less clear that the abundance of Plaice and other 
flat fishes may be very sensibly influenced by the opera- 
tions of modern fishing, and in fact many arguments point 
to the conclusion that the flat fisheries on British coasts 
are declining. The present system of collecting statistics 
is, however, so incomplete that to make out an absolutely 
convincing proof of this is difficult, and it is only fair to 
* Holt—An Examination of the present state of the Grimsby Trawl 
Fishery. Jour. Mar, Biol. Assoc., vol. iii. (N.S.), 1893-5, p. 339. 
