90 



Fuur hauls on the 12th and six on the l-Uh were 

 then made with a fish ti-^vl consisting' of a net with a 

 T-inch mesh throughout bent on to a -'{O-feet beam. There 

 was considerable difficulty in working the trawl on this 

 occasion on account of the extraordinary amount of 

 seaweed on the ground. In 1904 the same part of Luce 

 Bay was comparatively free from weed ; but in 1905 it 

 was in parts very foul, so much so that it was found 

 quite impossible to get ilie net aboard on the third haul 

 on October 12th, owing to the great mass of weed which 

 it had taken and whicli had caused the net to catch also 

 a quantity of sand. It was, therefore, necessary to cni 

 the tails, and the catch was almost entirely lost. Then 

 other parts of the same area were tried so as to avoid this 

 (lch)'i.s, but it was found that the largest plaice were 

 among the seaweed; hauls III. and I^'. were made on 

 comparatively clean ground, and it will be seen that the 

 proportion of large ])laice taken was much lower than in 

 the other hauls. To avoid the fouling of the net, and 

 the damage to the fish entailed by the weight of the weed 

 and the time it required to get the haul aboard we were, 

 therefore, obliged to resort to the foul grolmd again. 

 Short hauls, varying from three-quarters of an hour to 

 50 minutes were made, and by this means Captain 

 Wignall M'as able to steer between the Scylla of too much 

 rubbish in the net, and the Charybdis of too nu^ny small 

 and useless fish. But even with all due precaution some 

 of the plaice obtained Avere badly crushed and scarred 

 and subsequently died. 



Tables II. and III. shew the results of the trawling 

 on 12th and 18th October. 



