Aberdeen Fishery Statistics. 37 



Whether from the full series or from the simplified one, we may 

 easily discover — 



1. That the two adjacent East Coast Areas (XXIII. and XXIX.) 

 give very similar and concordant results : that is to say, the fluctuations 

 in abundance, the years of comparative plenty and comparative 

 scarcity of cod, are the same in both cases. This fact is simple and 

 natural enough, for the two areas are close together and geographi- 

 cally similar, and we might reasonably expect their respective 

 phenomena to be closely related. But all the same, the remarkable 

 and continuous agreement of our figures, over the long period of 

 fully fourteen years, is just the sort of thing we want, to give us 

 confidence in our own statistical methods, and to assure us that we 

 are actually obtaining a true picture, at least on certain well-fished 

 areas, of the fluctuations and abundance of the fish. 



2. We may note in the next place that the catch of cod on the 

 more northerly of our two areas (XXIII.) is not only normally greater 

 than on the southern one (XXIX.) ; but it is always greater, when 

 judged by our twelve-monthly averages, over the whole period of 

 fourteen years. Towards the very end of our period, in 1916, the 

 catches from the tw^o areas become very nearly equal — the pre- 

 ponderance of Area XXIII. tending to disappear. I am inclined to 

 think that this recent tendency to agreement simply means that, 

 under the conditions prevailing in 1916, the more distant parts of 

 the areas were not being fished ; in other words, that the areas or 

 parts of areas from which our statistics actually came were then 

 unusually near together. 



3. As regards the actual changes of fluctuations, we see that 

 there was a distinct maximum in the average catch of cod about 

 1905, and a minimum about 1910-11 ; and there was a second, but 

 lower, maximum about 1913. Since that time the catches of cod on 

 these two areas have fallen considerably, especially in Area XXIII. ; 

 but the catches of 1916 were better than those of the preceding 

 year. 



The Catch of Haddock. 



One point only in our statistics of haddock seems to deserve 

 particular attention at present — and that is a sudden and very 

 large increase in the catch of extra small, or chat, haddocks, on 

 Areas XXIII. and XXIX., beginning in the August 1914, the very 

 month of the commencement of the war. 



From the following Tables, and from Fig. 5, it will be seen 

 that the catch of these fish during the latter part of 1914 and 1915 

 reached five or six, or even eight times its usual average ; that in 

 1916 the landings, though still very large, were notably diminished; 

 and that by the end of that year they showed signs of a return to 

 normal values. 



This is a good example of a sort of case which deserves to be 

 studied and interpreted with all possible caution and circumspection. 

 The magnitude and conspicuousness of the phenomenon, and the 

 precise coincidence of its commencement with that of the war, would 

 not only lead us at first sight to suppose that its cause was connected 

 with the war, but might very well lead us on, in all confidence, to 

 frame hypotheses or speculations regarding the nature of the 



