TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. 769 



The earliest of these was the Scotch Trawling Commission, the carrying out of 

 wliich was fortunately entrusted to I'rofessor Mcintosh, then, as now, our highest 

 authority on the scientific aspects of sea fisheries, and his report may be regarded 

 as the classic of the subject. 



More recently Dr. Fulton has been able to give us much valuable information 

 as to the distribution of immature fish on tlie various grounds accessible to the 

 Garland, and my colleague, Mr. Cunningham, has dealt with the same subject 

 in the Plymouth district. 



The results attained by the Royal Dublin Society's survey of the west coast of 

 Ireland fishing grounds appeared early in the present year, my reports being 

 arranged as far as possible on the model of those put forth by Dr. Fulton. 



From their very nature, however, none of the observations gives us any idea of 

 tlie total amount of destruction that is actually caused by any one practical fishing 

 industry on any one coast. 



Indeed, beyond a few vague statements, made at fishery conferences, &c., we 

 have only Dr. Fulton's estimate of the numbers of small fish captured (though not 

 destroyed) by the small fleet of shrimpers in Solway Firth. 



I propose in the present paper to give such observations as I have been able to 

 raalie on the actual quantity of undersized fish that have been landed at the port 

 of Grimsby during the present year. 



I shall limit my remarlts to plaice, turbot, brill, and soles. 



Plaice. — As may be seen from the comparative table, I consider that 17 inches 

 is the average size at which female plaice spawn for tlie first time, and, therefore, 

 the biological limit between mature and immature fish. 



On every North Sea ground with which I am acquainted a proportion of the 

 plaice fail to reach that standard ; but at present I sliall confine myself to the dis- 

 cussion of fish landed //-owi those grounds wliere only small Jish are to be found. 



Moreover I shall not make use of the biological limit, but shall use the term 

 ' small ' in the sense in which it is understood by fishermen and fish merchants. 



The appended figures refer, therefore, to fish which are undersized in every 

 sense of the word. 



The quantity is certainly not exaggerated ; indeed, it is probable that a number 

 of boxes have escaped my notice altogether, whilst I have omitted from considera- 

 tion numbers of boxes which, though containing chiefly small fish, have yet had a 

 few fair-sized ones arranged on the top. 



There were landed at the port of Grimsby — 



During April l,8Ji6 boxes of small plaice 



» May 830 „ 



,, June 3,470 „ „ 



„ July 2,059 „ „ 





Total for the four months . . 8,195 boxes. 



In addition 155 large packing cases of small fish, caught by Danish boats, were 

 brought to Grimsby market by cargo steamers. 



The sizes of fish in the above boxes range from 6 or 8 inches up to a maximum 

 Mf 15 inches, but in the majority of cases do not exceed 13 or 14 inches, or very 

 frequently even 12 inches. 



A box of such fish containsabout 300 fish, more or less, weighing about nine stone. 



To be far on the safe side let us take 250 fish as the number in a box, giving us 

 a total for Grimsby smacks of 2,048,750 fish, or in round numbers 2,000,000. In 

 all probability the actual number is not less than 2,500,000. 



The packing cases contain about 200 fisli, which gives us a total of 31,000 fish, 

 sent over per cargo boat by foreign fishermen. 



Thus we have direct evidence that at the lowest possible computation the con- 

 signments oi exclusively small plaice landed at Grimsby from April to July reached 

 a total of 2,079,750 fish. 



I do not know whether the numbers I have given will appear surprisingly 

 large or surprisingly sma'l, 



1892. 3© 



