_ 9 APPENDIX F: HENKING 



17. Angler (Lophius piscatorius L.). 



1902 1903 



0-7 (+ 1-14) pounds 3-19 (+ ro5) pounds. 



It has thus a very unimportant role. It is brought to land chiefly in the first months 

 of the year. 



II. The southern North Sea 



I include here the banks (1)^ Borkum, (2) Norderney, (3) Heligoland, (4) Sylt inner 

 ground, (17) Sylt outer ground, (9) Clay Deep, (10) Barren Ground, (5) Horns Reef, 

 (20) Horns Reef outer ground, (13) Southern Mud Bank, (14) Northern Mud Bank, 

 (11) N. E. Dogger Bank, (12) Little Fisher Bank, (6) Jutland inner ground, (18) Jutland 

 outer ground. 



It is difficult to separate the banks for general statistical purposes, as they lie close 

 to and join one another. Consequently, it is only rarely, that the steamers fish one single 

 bank exclusively. 



It seems preferable, therefore, to take these banks together, provisionally. 



So far as the steamers give detailed returns of their catches, it is possible to enter 

 into an analysis of separate banks. 



All the banks mentioned have this in common, that they lie almost completely in the 

 German Bight of the North Sea, connected as by an outstretched hand by the Dogger 

 Bank, which points towards the Skager Rak like an extended finger. 



The hydrographical conditions are also characteristic, as is shown by the bottom- 

 curves on the subjoined Charts for 1902 and 1903; along the coast, there is a broad 

 stream of weakly saline water, in the centre, there is a curve of 34°/oo salinity, which 

 varies relatively little in the various months and is fairly well limited outwards by the 

 curve of 34'8 %o salinity. 



Water of 35 %o salinity not rarely pushes down from the north, however, far over 

 the outer banks, as for example, in May and August 1903; on the other hand, the 

 southern Atlantic water may also penetrate from the Channel far into this part of the 

 North Sea, as was the case in February 1903, and drives the water of weaker salinity 

 close in to the coast so that greater and more rapid gradations of salinity occur there. 



The temperature also varies considerably in these tolerably flat parts of the North 

 Sea; this can be readily understood lor the immediate neighbourhood of the coast, but 

 even at station D 1 near the centre of the region, temperature-variations from not quite 

 -H 5° to almost + 15° C^ have been observed (1903). 



It is evident without further explanation, that periodic fluctuations in the stock of fish, 

 including also the food of fishes, are extraordinarily favoured by the manifold factors 

 mentioned, viz.: 



' The numbers are the same as those used in a paper to be cited later (p. 19, note). 

 2 As in this summary generally, I speak here only of the bottom water-layers. 

 Appendix F 2 



