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1. That a number of "trawling stations" should be 

 marked off on the chart of our district. The exact lines 

 and extent of these for the first year's work might con- 

 veniently be fixed upon by Mr. Dawson and myself from 

 our present knowledge of the area, the guiding idea being 

 to investigate those spots where we have some reason to 

 think that food fishes congregate at some season for a 

 special purpose such as spawning or feeding. The Black- 

 pool "closed ground" would naturally be one station, 

 another might be the "Horse Channel" or" Hilbre Swash," 

 and a couple should be well out to sea, on the off-shore 

 spawning grounds. These "trawling stations" should be 

 lines the extremities of which are determined by obser- 

 vations of parallax on shore, ("cross bearings") or from 

 buoys or other fixed points, so that as far as possible the 

 same line and the same extent of ground should be trawled 

 over in each observation. 



2. It should be the rule that (weather permitting) each 

 station (A, B, C, &c.) should be trawled over at least once 

 a month. It would be still more satisfactory, if it could 

 be so arranged, that each station should be trawled over 

 twice a month in opposite states of the tide, as it is very 

 important in comparing such periodical observations with 

 one another, that the conditions under which they are 

 made should be similar. By this plan there would be a 

 series of monthly observations at each station at flood tide 

 and another series at ebb tide. 



3. In taking each observation I would recommend that 

 the following course of procedure be followed : — 



a, the ship is brought to one end of the Station and stopped, 



b, a white enamelled disc for testing the transparency of 



the water is lowered over the side by means of a line 

 on which quarter fathoms are marked and the depth 

 at which the disc disappears is noted, 



