SOLE FISHERIES IN NORTH SEA. 185 



places, and there is also a good deal of rough ground 

 in the North Sea where the fish breed. 



"This rough ground, where the trawlers cannot go 

 without danger of breaking their nets, affords a ' sanc- 

 tuary,^ as the Scotch deer-stalkers have it, for the 

 soles. 



" Soles also resort to the Dogger Bank probably for 

 the piu'pose of spawning. They are caught there in 

 large numbers in May, June, and July. That they 

 probably spawn here may be concluded from the fact 

 that very large quantities of little soles an inch or two 

 long get jammed and killed in the ground ropes of the 

 trawl net. 



" When the winter season comes on, the soles in the 

 North Sea take up their winter quarters (probably for 

 hybernating purposes) in very deep water. The chief 

 resort of soles in the winter months is the Silver Pits, a 

 very extensive piece of deep water situated between the 

 Dogger Bank and the Well Bank. The greatest depth 

 is to be found at the west end, where there is fifty- six 

 fathoms of water, i.e., 134 feet higher than the Monu- 

 ment. 



" The soundings brought up from here resemble 

 biscuit dust. ''^ 



"■ The Silver Pits (first discovered, I believe, in 1843) 

 are so called on account of the large quantity of fish 

 which were caught when the pits were first discovered. 

 Soles massed themselves together in these pits in a 

 wondrous way, and fabulous stories are told of the sole 

 fishery there. 



" In the winter time the soles also resort to a locality 

 called California, a small tract of coarse ground first 

 discovered in 1847. The north end is about five miles 

 from Flamborough. 



