of the Fisher 11 Hoard jor Scoiland. 



389 



These ranges and averages must be regarded as tentative and 

 approximate ; but at all events it is evident that the growth of the young 

 whiting in the summer, and especially in May, June, and July, must be 

 very rapid. From the beginning of September until the end of 

 November the increase calculated from the measurements amounted to 

 26-9 mm., and, as amended, to 36-6 mm., and this increment, it must be 

 noted, took place with a falling temperature of the water. At the 

 beginning of September the mean size calculated was about 109-8 mm. 

 or, as amended, 94 mm., and as the average whiting started life in the 

 early part of May with a length of 3*5 mm., the increment of growth in 

 May, June, July, and August — approximately 110-120 days — would be 

 about 90 mm., or Sf*^- inches, which is at the rate of 7*8 mm. for each ten 

 days. The next older series of whitings (whose minimum size is not 

 subject to the same doubt and qualification) increased in part of the same 

 period, namely, from 30th May to 4th September — an interval of 97 days 

 — by 54-9 mm. (2-j% inches), or at the rate of 5-66 mm. for each ten 

 days. 



This circumstance alone, I think, would remove any doubt as to the 

 real age of these whitings belonging to the first series. It seemed to me 

 at first surprising that the whiting in the course of a single summer and 

 autumn should, on the average, grow from a few millimetres to about five 

 inches in length, and that some undoubtedly of the same series, 

 although, no doubt, spawned earlier in the spring, should even reach an 

 extreme length of about 7| inches at the end of autumn. The belief 

 that they were really in their second and not in their first year seemed 

 reasonable, and this view received some support from the groupin" of 

 the very smallest whitings in several hauls in the autumn* both in 1900 



Nineteenth Ann. lii'p., Part iii., p. 187. 



