24 MARKKTABLE BRITISH MARINE FISHES chap. 



devoted. Nine of the plates are finely-executed chromo- 

 lithographs, prepared from water-colour drawings made from life 

 by an artist specially employed for the purpose. These plates 

 illustrate the characters and appearance of the four British 

 species of sole, the changes in the colour of the common .sole on 

 different grounds, and the position and relations of the breeding 

 organs in their natural position as seen on dissection. The other 

 plates illustrate the anatomy of the sole, and the eggs and 

 transformations of the young in this and other species of flat 

 fishes. The latter two sections of the four into which the memoir 

 is divided contain a full and careful discussion of the natural 

 history of the sole, and the bearings of this upon the production 

 of soles for the market. The artificial propagation of the sole, 

 which has been carried out onlyatthe Plymouth Laboratory, is fully 

 considered, and is shown to be beset with certain difficulties not 

 met with in connection with other kinds of food-fish. These 

 difficulties are chiefly caused by the remarkably small size of the 

 male breeding organs or milts in the sole, a peculiarity to which 

 was due the fact that previous observers failed to recognise the 

 male sole at all. 



We find from the Eighth Annual Report of the Scottish 



Fishery Board, published in 1890, that in 1889 the scientific 



work had been entirely superintended by Dr. Wemyss Fulton, 



acting under the instructions of the Board, the Scientific 



Committee having ceased to act. In this Report the trawling 



observations are discussed on the usual plan for the year 1889 



and show a distinct decrease of fish in the closed areas — a 



somewhat different result from that originally anticipated. The 



most important part of the Report is Dr. Fulton's paper on the 



" Distribution of Immature Fish and their Capture by different 



Modes of Fishing," based upon observations specially made by 



the Board's investigation steamer Garland. This paper contains 



the first attempt made to ascertain the size at which each species 



of food-fish becomes mature — that is, the size at which it breeds 



for the first time. This was done merely by finding the sizes 



recorded of the smallest ripe, or nearly ripe, specimen of the 



various species examined. The distribution of the fish above 



and below these limiting sizes is lucidly described, and we have 



here the first contribution of importance to our knowledge of 



the differences amono- the different kinds of fish as to the regions 



