GROWTH, MIGRATIONS, FOOD AND HABITS 113 



seasons, but immature, are also taken, but these are more 

 abundant in somewhat deeper water where they are captured 

 by the shrimp trawl worked from a boat. The soles taken in the 

 shove-nets from April to June are the smallest of the brood of 

 the previous season ; they are 2i inches long and upwards, and 

 are taken only in small numbers. The newly transformed little 

 soles have been taken in the tide pools at Mevagissey in May, 

 and on the Newcome Sand off Lowestoft I have seen hundreds 

 of specimens taken in September which measured 2 inches to 2\ 

 inches long, and which were evidently three or four months old. 

 At Plymouth and other places young turbot are found in con- 

 siderable numbers swimming at the surface of the water in the 

 later stages of transformation in July and August, brill in May 

 and June. At these stages, before the lower eye has reached its 

 final position, these fish are of considerable size, f to \\ inches 

 in length, and differ from the corresponding stages of other flat- 

 fishes also in being opaque and coloured, and swimming con- 

 stantly at the surface, as they are able to do by means of the 

 large air-bladder which they possess at this period of their lives. 

 But during the next period of their growth, the first six months 

 after they have taken to the ground, they have not been taken in 

 numbers by naturalists, though in all probability living near the 

 margin of the sea. A few are taken in the shrimp nets in the 

 spring of the year after they are hatched, 3^ inches long and 

 upwards ; these are about nine months old. 



Whiting are taken in most localities where shrimping is 

 carried on, in enormous numbers in the autumn after they are 

 hatched, when they are from a little less than 3 inches to 5 inches 

 in length. But both whiting and cod for the first few months of 

 life, although living near the shore, are found chiefly near the 

 surface, the cod and also the haddock and whiting having the 

 habit at this stage of lurking beneath the bells of large jelly 

 fishes, and feeding on the surface Crustacea. 



In illustration of the comparative abundance of the different 

 kinds of young fishes taken on shrimping grounds, details of a 

 few catches are here given. In one shove-net at Cleethorpes in 

 one tide on April 25, 1892, were taken with four quarts of shrimps 

 the following fish : 



P1 - /896.... I i to 4^ inches. 



llaice X 12 4*to 9 



Dabs 3 U to if 



I 



