MARKETABLE BRITISH MARINE FISHES 



part of the season, from the end of March to the end of June, 

 and samples obtained from the same grounds in November and 

 December contained no fish under 9 inches in length. A box of 

 the small plaice from these grounds and bought for 35-. 9^. on 

 June 1st, 1895, in Grimsby Market, contained 360 fish, 211 

 males, and 149 females. The males were 7| inches to iii inches 

 in length, the females from, y'-}^ to 13 inches. From examination 

 of these fish in spring and summer they were found to be with 

 few exceptions immature, and this result has been recently 

 confirmed by examination of large samples taken by German 

 trawlers in winter ; all the females, with one exception, 

 under 13 inches were immature, and all the males under 

 1 1 inches. It is clear, therefore, that these small fish are not 

 small because they belong to a smaller race, like that in the 

 Channel and in the Baltic Sea, but because they are young and 

 immature. They belong to the same race, and they mature at 

 the same size, as the plaice of the Dogger Bank or the York- 

 shire coast. They consist therefore of fish in their second and 

 third years. The remarkable fact about them is their extra- 

 ordinary abundance, for they are far more abundant than are 

 plaice of similar size at the mouth of the Humber. As far as 

 our present knowledge allows us to judge, the reason for this is 

 the abundance of food on these grounds and the direction of the 

 currents in the North Sea. It has been proved that floating 

 objects are carried southwards and eastwards along the north- 

 east coast of England as far as the coast of Norfolk, and thence 

 in a curved direction to the German Bight, while there appears 

 to be a northerly drift from the Straits of Dover along 

 the Dutch coast. Hence it appears that of the plaice spawn 

 shed in the northern part of the North Sea a greater quantity 

 is carried to the continental shores that to the English. The 

 young plaice brood of the year appears to be reared in enormous 

 numbers on the German and Danish shores, and in spring, the 

 year-old fish seem to move out in a great body from inshore 

 grounds towards deeper water, where they join the two-year-old 

 fish already there, and so constitute the abundance of " small 

 plaice " which have attracted so much attention from those 

 engaged in the trawling industry in the North Sea. 



