12 Drift Bottles, N. Sea; Fish Spawning Grounds. 



from the neighbourhood of the Eddystone. Some bottles went 

 west, even rounding the Land's End. The majority passed 

 along the English coast, or grounded at various points. Some 

 again, about opposite Dungeness, swerved to the French coast, 

 between Calais and Boulogne. A solitary one got to near 

 Ramsgate, and a number passed the Straits of Dover and were 

 eventually stranded on the continental coasts from Holland to 

 Norway. These last show that under certain states of the tide, 

 with westerly wind, a surface drift leads into the east side of the 

 Dover Strait. Yet the normal tidal streams of the Channel 

 (Pilot's Handbook) are to a certain degree circulatory as in the 

 North Sea : to wit, the ancient barrier still has a sway. 



Reverting to another aspect of the question, viz. : Have 

 the currents on the east British coast any influence on the 

 migration of food fish or on the location of the spawning grounds? 

 These points have likewise received elucidation from the Scotch 

 Fishery Board.* 



The general results are to the following effect : That the 

 important food-fish whose eggs float, such as the cod, haddock, 

 plaice, sole, lemon-sole, turbot and halibut, do not spawn within 

 the east coast territorial waters, whilst sprat and flounder do 

 spawn, chiefly within the three-mile limit. Others, again, 

 whiting, dab and gurnard hover within the limits, or spawn 

 further off-shore, as the case may be. Then, again, the investi- 

 gations show that the buoyant eggs, often hatching en route, are 

 swept by the currents south and inshore. There also seems to 

 be in different species a relation in length of time in egg 

 development, according to temperature and the distance the 

 eggs are floated. Where carried into estuaries the post-larval 

 fish there congregate in "nurseries " in immense numbers. As 

 a rule, the young fish mainly take a course up the estuary 

 towards the south shore ; while the fuller grown and more adult 



* Fulton. " Migration and Rate of Growth of Food Fishes," 15th Ann. Rep. for 1892; 

 also " Relation of Marine Currents to Off-shore Spawning Areas and Inshore Nur- 

 series," 13th Ann. Rep. for 1894 ; and 17th Ann. Rep. for 1898. See likewise Cunningham, 

 "Marketable Marine Fishes, 1895"; and Mclntosh & Masterman, "British Marine 

 Food Fishes, 1897." 



