of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 9 
to be unproductive in October and on various occasions since, both 
in regard to the abundance of marketable fishes and to the profitable 
nature of the fishing compared with the offshore grounds. 
On one of the occasions the trawler was equipped with a beam- 
trawl as well as an otter-trawl, in order to allow comparison to be 
made of the relative efficiency of the two nets on the same ground 
at the same time, but in the second haul with the beam-trawl the 
net was lost. The results of the first drag support the statement 
previously made that the horizontal spread of the otter-net does not 
greatly exceed the width of the beam-trawl, but fishes higher from 
the bottom. It is thus relatively less efficient for the capture of 
flat-fishes than of round-fishes. 
THE RELATIVE ABUNDANCE, DISTRIBUTION, AND MIGRATIONS 
OF THE Foop FISHES. 
In the present Report the results of the investigations made on 
board trawlers regarding the distribution and relative abundance 
of the food fishes at different sizes, and the extent of their migra- 
tions, are described by Dr. T. Wemyss Fulton. Among the flat- 
fishes certain species which begin their life in the shallow water, 
or on the beaches, move out when older into deeper water, and 
may be obtained in diminishing numbers at considerable distances 
from land. Thus the plaice appears to pass its early stages exclusively 
in the shallow water near shore, while the older forms, ranging 
about twenty inches in length and not under fourteen inches, were 
got in fair numbers in sixty-five fathoms, from eighteen to twenty 
miles from Fair Isle, and in smaller numbers in water of the same 
depth, sixty-five miles from Sumburgh Head, which was the 
nearest land. None of these fish were under about three years of 
age. The adult plaice were found in still greater abundance on 
the Fisher Bank, in the middle of the North Sea, in thirty-four 
fathoms. In all these localities the plaice present must have 
migrated very considerable distances in the course of their growth, 
in the latter instance probably from the Danish coast via the 
Dogger Bank, and this agrees with the results of the marking 
experiments. Observations on the rate of movement of the 
plaice in the large tidal pond at the Bay of Nigg show that when 
leisurely swimming they may travel considerably over a mile in 
one hour. 
The turbot was also occasionally found far from shore in deep 
water, and it also begins life in shallow water; while the brill is more 
restricted in its range. The dab, on the other hand, not so strictly 
confined in its early stages to the shallow water, was found further 
offshore in deeper water than the plaice, but, like the latter, in 
greatly diminished numbers. 
The observations in regard to the round-fishes also indicate an 
extensive wandering or migration. It was found that as a rule the 
adult cod were more numerous relatively and absolutely on the 
inshore grounds, that the larger codling were more abundant off- 
shore, and that the smaller codling under two years of age were 
