Distribution of Plaice Eggs — East Coast. 



41 



were selected on each line. The inner station was one mile from the 

 shore, and the most easterly one 33 miles distant. 



These figures represent the total number of plaice eggs at the difEerent 

 developmental stages caught at the various stations in a vertical haul 

 and in surface, mid- water, and bottom hauls of one yalf-hour's duration. 

 The frequencies of plaice eggs are in every case very low and cannot be 

 compared with those from the richer grounds of the Moray Firth area. 

 Such low frequency has been a characteristic feature of all the ob- 

 servations made on the East Coast of Scotland within this area, while 

 these observations in themselves are too few, yet they are significant, 

 and are not easy of interpretation. The presence of eggs in the later 

 stages of development is proof, however, either that plaice spawned in 

 the locality earlier in the year or that the eggs were drifted from some 

 earlier spawning area. But we have already seen that a considerable 

 number of newly spawned eggs were obtained on the 25th and 27 th of 

 February at Stations 27 and at Tod Head. Also, on the 27th of 

 February, a number of eggs in the " ^ '' stage were taken near Cove, and 

 if these had their origin on the East Coast of Scotland the commencement 

 of the spawning season on the East Coast would have to be placed much 

 earlier. It must not be forgotten also that plaice eggs have been found 

 as early as December east of May Island. Unfortunately, no regular 

 and extensive observations have been carried out in the coastal area ; 

 indeed, most of the observations in that area have been made far from 

 the coast, where it is known that no large plaice are to be found at the 

 spawning period. The numerous observations which have been carried 

 out in the shallower coastal area in March, although not easily com- 

 pared on account of their irregularity, help gxeatly towards a correct 

 understanding of the conditions. As the absolute frequencies of plaice 

 eggs in the collections have always been low, the differences between 

 the various localities are correspondingly small, and therefore slight 

 differences may be due entirely to errors of sampling or to special 

 conditions in particular years. Thus the relatively high frequency of 

 newly spawned eggs found 33 miles off Montrose on the 23rd March 

 1909, is exceptionally high, as observations made in other years in the 

 near vicinity gave very poor results. 



On the other hand, the frequency of freshly spawned eggs is much 

 d 



