APPENDIX K: KYLE — 6 — 



The fishing up of the larger plaice is a phenomenon well-known for other fishing 

 grounds, in the Kattegat, North Sea or elsewhere, and the phrase "accumulated stock" is 

 very descriptive of the condition of things on a new and comparatively untouched fishing 

 ground. The reasons why the fishing ceased, so far as commercial purposes were con- 

 cerned, when the accumulated stock was fished up, are directly traceable, according to 

 Hjort and Dahl, to the physical conditions which are found along the Norwegian coast. 

 The areas suited to the plaice are small in extent and, like oases, surrounded by great 

 depths of water in which neither the adults nor the young live. Further, the strong cur- 

 rents which prevail there, scatter the eggs and pelagic young far and wide, and it is 

 only a small chance that, when the pelagic stage is safely passed, the young should find 



Fig. I. Plaice-fishery in Norway.' 



themselves on any shallow sandy ground suited to their growth. Whether .the stock on 

 one of these isolated grounds be large or small, there is but the remotest chance of any 

 of the young returning there. Consequently, if a ground is rapidly deprived of its "accu- 

 mulated stock" it will take many years before it can recover. Meantime, the stock of 

 medium-sized plaice is not sufficient to maintain the fishery. 



The differences between these examples of the Norwegian plaice fishery and the 

 plaice fisheries of the North Sea and Kattegat, lie on the one hand in the physical con- 

 ditions, and on the other in the quantities of medium-sized plaice available for maintaining 

 a fishery. The whole of the coastal areas round the North Sea and Kattegat are suited 

 to the young plaice, and the chances are strongly against the currents carrying the eggs 

 and pelagic young into depths where they cannot live and grow. As a consequence of 

 this, the younger stages of the plaice, the undersized fish, are present in great multitudes 

 I In place of Iröien, read Fröien. 



