164 SoLwAY Nature Notes. 



considerable variety of living- creatures will be found. Often 

 the sand teems with shrimps, which have buried themselves 

 there for reasons best known to themselves. When this is 

 the case sea urchins will also be found — they are there pre- 

 sumably to feed on the shrimps. There are, too, other 

 creatures — worms, shellfish, &c. It is true that sometimes 

 one will not be able to discover any sign of life in the sand. 



When the banks contain living creatures, fish will be 

 found on them when they are covered by the tide. They 

 are there because their food is there. When the banks are 

 barren there will be no fish, for obvious reasons. It follows 

 then that over a very large area of the Firth the food supply 

 is migratory, or at anyrate unreliable, and we who have 

 fished these waters know that the presence of fish in a given 

 place cannot be relied on. They are there for a few days or 

 weeks, and then they disappear. 



One asks oneself — Are there any places where fish may 

 always be found? That is to say, where there is a constant 

 supply of food. The answer is in the affirmative. A further 

 consideration of the question reveals the fact that these places 

 vi^'hich invariably harbour fish of some kind are near rocks or 

 stones on which seaweed and algae grow. Also one remem- 

 bers that out on the banks where the weed-grown and mussel- 

 covered ribs of some old wreck are standing fish will be 

 found when it is hopeless to look for them anywhere else in 

 the neighbourhood. Outlying rocks standing" in an expanse 

 of sand always attract fish. The reason is that there there 

 is always food, and a refuge and nursery for the food. 



Why are the piles of a wooden pier such a favourite 

 resort for fish? Not only because they afford a certain 

 amount of shelter and security, but because weeds, alg;se, 

 barnacles, mussels, and a host of other foods and food-pro- 

 ducing things are to be found there. 



I venture to think that if suitable areas of bottom were 

 properly dealt with a very much larger yield of fish might be 

 obtained from our Firth. 



There are, of course, difficulties in the way, but as a 

 fish culturist I have been up against dilBculties all my life, 

 and I know that few, if any, are insuperable. In this case 



