186 Part LI1—Twenty-first Annual Report 
V.—THE DISTRIBUTION, GROWTH, AND: FOOD VOR Wine 
ANGLER (Lophius piscatorius). By Dr. T. Wemyss Fuuron, 
F.R.S.E., Scientific Superintendent. 
I, DistRIBUTION. 
With regard to distribution, the angler is common both in the inshore 
waters and in the greatest depths at which the trawlers work, but it 
seems to be most abundant in water of moderate depth. Jn the course 
of the investigations made on board steam-trawlers from Aberdeen 
specimens were taken on the north-eastern grounds in from seventy to 
eighty fathoms. Bourne took one on the west coast of Ireland in 200 
fathoms,* Brown-Goode records specimens taken on the eastern side of 
the Atlantic from 84, 142, and 365 fathoms,f and Holt and Calderwood 
from 115 fathoms on the west coast of Ireland.t 
In the course of the trawling investigations 1956 specimens were taken 
in recorded hauls, 155 on the distant grounds, 256 in Aberdeen Bay, and 
1549 in the Moray Firth. The amount of fishing in the different areas 
was, however, dissimilar, but the average number taken per ten hours’ 
trawling in the deep water on the north-eastern grounds, south-east and 
south of the Shetland Isles, was 6:1, in Aberdeen Bay it was 15°9, and 
in the Moray Firth 24-4. On the Great Fisher Bank in thirty-four 
fathoms only five were taken in nine hauls in May, the proportion being 
1*4 per ten hours’ trawling. But while the proportion remained fairly 
steady on the deep-water grounds, it fluctuated very considerably in the 
inshore waters. In September on the former it was nearly 7 in ten 
hours, in October 6, in May 5, in June 9. In the Moray Firth in those 
months it was 5, 3, 66, and 6, and in Aberdeen Bay 4, 16, 68, and 5. 
The averages for the various months in Aberdeen Bay and the Moray Firth 
are as follows :— 
Jan. | Feb. | Mar. | April.| May. |June.| July.| Aug. |Sept.| Oct. | Nov.| Dec. 
eee si 5 | 
Aberdeen Bay, iD 2 0°0 68 5 27 - 4 16 8 | 0-0 
Moray Firth, . 6 57 10 66 6 1 22 | 5 3 LO ess 
| 
The proportions in the two areas do not correspond, and probably 
show, therefore, that the abundance depends upon local conditions, as the 
presence or absence of other fish, such as herrings, sprats, or shoals of 
young whitings, which attract predaceous fishes, The angler, notwith- 
tanding its apparently slow power of movement, seems to be able to 
collect where fishes, and especially small fishes, are abundant. 
Whether this was the cause of the very large numbers taken in inshore 
waters in May (609) is not clear. Whitings and haddocks, both large 
and small, were at least very scarce at the time on the same grounds. 
The larger proportion of the anglers taken in the Moray Firth were got 
at Burghead Bay on the south coast, in water from five or six to about 
twenty fathoms deep, and they were most numerous in February, when 
as many as ninety were taken in a single haul, the average number per 
ten hours’ trawling being 103. In this case the presence of a shoal of 
* Jour. Mar. Biol. Assoc., New Ser., i., p. 310, 
+ Oceanic Ichthyology, p. 485. 
t Set. Trans. Roy. Dublin Soc., v., Ser. ii., p. 415. 
