— 32 — 



work nearer land, their principal port being Helder: these last are always provided with 

 a receptacle (Biinn) for storage of live fish. The larger sailing vessels fish in the areas 

 A2 and B3, the small ships probably only in A3. It is impossible to determine exactly 

 the relative value of the yields of steamers and sailing ships; at a rough estimate, the 

 steamers take in all probability at least 75 Vo of all the landings, leaving only 25 "/o 

 to the sailing vessels. 



Holland has up to the present no size-limit, legal or accepted. Thus a consider- 

 ably larger number of young undersized plaice are landed in this country and utilised 

 for human consumption than elsewhere, especially by the small sailing vessels, which 

 work chiefly in the area As. In the Dutch market, plaice are at present divided into 

 four market-classes: "large", "medium"', "small I" and "small 11" the approximate 

 average weights of the plaice being 1260, 690, 290, and 120 grammes. The last-named 

 smallest market-class "small 11" which average about 8 fish to the kilogramme, and 

 measure from 11 to 37 cm., most of them between 20 and 26 cm., form the great 

 majority of all the Dutch plaice landings from the North Sea, and amount to about 

 75 "/o to 80 "/o of the catch of the steamers and larger sailing ships, and more than 

 90 "/o of that of the shore fishing vessels. 



The Dutch market measurements being less methodically and relatively less extensively 

 carried out than the English and German, it is impossible to give any thoroughly reliable 

 picture of the composition of the Dutch landings of plaice from cm. to cm. either as 

 regards the whole of that part of the North Sea worked by Dutch fishermen, or for the 

 separate areas. We can however, with some degree of reliability, calculate the compo- 

 sition of the landings at the principal port, Ymuiden, which takes the catches of nearly all 

 the steamers and a part of that of the large sailing vessels, as shown for the year 1906. 



Table ^. Calculated co^nposition of the landings of plaice from the North Sea at the 



Port of Ymuiden, itt içoô. 



If the landings of the small sailing vessels fishing near the coast were added to 

 this calculation, and the composition of the total of the Dutch landings thus approxi- 



