— 6 — 



month of the year, that month however being by no means the same for all parts of 

 the map. The numbers are of course all higher than in fig. i, but their distribution is 

 not very different. The contrast is still more marked than in the former diagram be- 

 tween the North Sea grounds and those of the north-west coast, as well as between 

 these and Faeroe and Iceland, at the last of which we have catches of nearly 1800 cwts. 

 per 100 hours' fishing. The average catch on the North Sea grounds at what is in each 

 case the best season of the year is probabl}' somewhat over 40 cwts. per 100 hours' 

 trawhng, so that the catch at Iceland in the season exceeds that number forty-fold. 

 Among the facts to be learned from the inspection of fig. 2 is the presence of Cod in 

 unusual abundance at certain seasons in the southern part of the North Sea, in the 

 neighbourhood of the Dogger and southern parts of the Fisher Bank. 



A similar chart for Codling (fig. 4) shows a distribution not dissimilar to that of 

 fig. 2, and indicates a mean catch for the best season of the year of about 3c) cwts. for 

 the North-Sea, 60 cwts. for the north-west coast, or in each case about double of the 



Fig. 3. Cod. Mean catch in cwts. per 100 lirs. 

 trawling 1901 — 06, in tlie best month of the year 



for each area. 

 Iceland 1492 Faeroe 644 



Fig. 4. Mean Maximum, or average catch in tlie 



best month of tlie year. 1901 — 06. 

 Iceland 86 Faeroe 213 



mean monthly catch. It M'ill be seen that in the Shetland areas the numbers are high, 

 and more comparable to those of the areas to the westward than to the North Sea areas. 

 In the North Sea we have a high figure for area XXVIII, immediately off the Firths of 

 Forth and Tay: but while it is undoubted that large shoals of Codling resort at times to 

 these inshore waters, our statistics from this area are too scanty to form a trustworthy 

 basis of comparison. 



I What is here spoken of as the mean catch for tlie North Sea areas is not the total catch divided 

 by the total number of hours' fishing, for that would give an undue predominance to those areas in which 

 the fishing is chiefly carried on. It is the mean of the several averages arrived at for the diff'erent areas, 

 that is to say of the numbers shown in figure i. It is an attempt to represent approximately what may 

 be called the mean density over our part of the North Sea. 



