Aberdeen Fishery Statistics. 23 



is to say, the hake are cauj^ht in larger iiiunbei's in those areas to 

 which they first come, and by the time we have got as far south as 

 the Aberdeen coast (Area XXIIl.), their numbers are very small 

 indeed, though they are still enough to indicate a seasonal maximum, 

 as in the other more frequented areas. 



In Figm-es 2-5 are set forth the successive monthly catches during 

 all the years for which we have information. Only four areas are 

 here dealt with, for these are sufficient for illustration, and besides, in 

 nearly all the others the total catch of hake is so meagre that the 

 material at hand for such cm-ves becomes inadequate. In Figure 2, 

 for the Shetland area (X.), we have a beautifully regular curve, in 

 which is at once seen how the catch rises every autumn, at almost 

 precisely the same date, and how it falls in late winter to stand for 

 several months at a value so low that we may regard it, comparatively 

 speaking, as almost nil. We see, further, as a very marked featm-e 

 of the diagram, that the catch was much higher in the years 1903-1905 

 (and especially in 1904) than in any of the succeeding years. There 

 have been minor fluctuations during recent years, but there is no 

 indication at all of a gradual and continued decline. 



Figs. 3 and 4, dealing with Areas XIV. and XVIII., more and 

 more to the southward of Area X., are highly interesting for comparison 

 with that area, as just described. For it will be seen that they indicate 

 precisely the same exceptional catches of hake in the 1903-05 

 as we have seen in Area X., and however convincing the statistics 

 from any one area may be, it is always useful, and it helps greatly to 

 assure us of the value of our statistical method, when we find the 

 evidence furnished by one particular area to be repeated and confirmed 

 by the independent observations in one or more adjacent areas. In 

 these two latter areas, XIV. and XVIII., we see in the more recent 

 years certain minor fluctuations which are not always identical in the 

 separate areas, nor are they, perhaps, large and important enough to 

 make us expect that they should be so ; but both in Areas XIV. and 

 XVIII. there is an indication of a catch considerably above the average 

 in 1908. On the whole, the catches from 1906 onwards are character- 

 ised by very considerable regularity, and there is no appearance what- 

 soever of gradual impoverishment. Lastly, it will be observed that 

 the actual magnitude of the catch diminishes steadily from Area X., 

 through Area XIV., to Ai-ea XVIII. ; that is to say, as we proceed 

 southward along the line of migration and follow the comparatively 

 small and dwindling body of hake, which enter the North Sea as an 

 offshoot from the main Atlantic shoal. In the Western area, C. (Fig. 5), 

 which includes Rona and Sule Skerry, the curve for hake is qiute 

 dif?erent from those just described, dealing with areas to the north- 

 east of Scotland. In this case there is no sign of large catches in 1904 

 or 1905, but on the other hand there are large catches in the winter 

 of 1907-08, and again, at the end of our period, in the years 1911-13. 

 This, and also the fact that the annual date of the appearance of the 

 hake is no earlier in this and the neighbouring Western areas than 

 it is in Shetland and to the south thereof, would lead us to think that, 

 whatever the precise route may be which the migrating hake follow, 

 it is not such as would lead the fish close round the north of Scotland 

 from the neighbourhood of the Much to the neighbourhood of Shetland. 

 The evidence, so far as it goes, rather entitles us to think that the 



