In preparing a Third Report on the progress of our knowledge regarding the Cod, 

 Haddock, and other "round fishes", I have found several important subjects more or less 

 ripe for treatment. A great mass of measurements made in the market at Aberdeen are 

 now in my hands, and I had at first hoped to present a report dealing with these; such 

 a report is in part written, but the material is so great and complicated, that I have not 

 been able to bring it to completion. Much material is also available, and all but ready 

 for publication, to illustrate the distribution of the Haddock and other Gadoids, on lines 

 similar to those which I employed in dealing with the distribution of the Cod in my Se- 

 cond Report. But I have thought it best on the whole to deal once more with the Eng- 

 lish Statistics, as I did in my First Report; for not only have these statistics been im- 

 proved and extended in various ways, but, since my First Report was based upon the 

 data for two years only, namely 1906 and 1907, it is important now that we have five 

 years (1906— 1910) to deal with, 

 to see how far those preliminary 

 conclusions were justified, and 

 also [to discover what progressive 

 tendencies are apparent in the 

 course of the five years. 



The English Statistics, 

 1906—10. 



It is not necessary to recapi- 

 tulate the methods of classifica- 

 tion employed in these statistics, 

 nor to describe again the areas 

 into which the North Sea is divided 

 for statistical purposes (fig. l). 

 We shall simply deal as before 

 with a summary, as brief as 

 possible, of the information that 

 the statistics furnish us with, under 

 the following heads: 



Fig. 1. Chart of the North Sea. 



