18 
SHRIMP AND SHANK. 
Some Shrimps (154) have been examined, and their food 
consisted of small Cardiwm edule, various algee, amphipods, 
vegetable tissue, Copepoda, Tellina balthica, annelid 
remains (setae and occasionally half digested portions of a 
Nereis or a worm closely allied to it being found), Crangon 
vulgaris (the shrimp itself), starfishes and echini (the pedi- 
cellariz and spines), Pectinaria belgica a tubicolous annelid 
very common in the sand below low water mark, Nauplius 
larve, Diatoms of various species, Hwnice, small fish, and 
a few Ostracods. 
The Shank (Pandalus annulicornis) of which 85 were 
examined, feeds to a large extent on Sabellaria alveolata— 
a worm which builds up masses of rock by cementing 
together sand grains—as the stomach contains usually 
numerous setae, occasionally the remains of the worm 
itself, amphipods, young Mytilus edulis, vegetable matter, 
spines of echini, stalks of Campanularians, and remains of 
Crustacea which were unidentifiable being merely small 
portions of legs and other appendages. 
THE MATURITY oF FISHES. 
It is desirable that the average size at which each species 
of food fish arrives at maturity, or produces spawn for the 
first time, should be determined for various parts of our 
coast. It does not do in this matter to take the figures 
ascertained for other places, such as the south coast or the 
North Sea, for what little we do know of spawning sizes 
tends to show that on different coasts the same kind of 
fish arrives at maturity at different sizes, if not ages. 
Consequently during last spawning season we made a 
beginning in the examination of fish and the collection of 
statistics in regard to size at maturity. Besides small 
numbers of half-a-dozen other edible fish, the following 
