Clare Island Survey. 



19. 

 PISCES. 



By GEOEGE P. FAKEAN. 



Read June 24. Published September 4, 1912. 



The following list of the fishes of Clare Island and Clew Bay is based, as 

 regards shore-forms, on specimens collected by members of the various 

 expeditions to the island, and, as regards the deeper water species, on the 

 Fisheries records of the cruiser " Helga," which, at different times, made hauls 

 of the trawl and dredge in the neighbourhood. Some notes on the fishes 

 of the islaud, kindly supplied by Mr. McCabe of the Clare Island hotel, have 

 also been incorporated in the list. No work was done at the fresh-water 

 fishes of the mainland, which accounts for the absence from the list of some 

 familiar species. 



The shores of Clare Island, consisting mainly of rocks with a small propor- 

 tion of boulder-beach and sand, have a rather scanty fish fauna ; but the 

 shores of the mainland and of the smaller islands, where they have been 

 examined, as at Annagh Island near Westport, seem to harbour a larger 

 number of species. The area which is available for trawling lies to the north 

 and north-east of Clare Island, where a stretch of clean sand occupies nearly 

 the whole of the north entrance to Clew Bay, extending eastwards as far as 

 Mulranny. The rest of the bay, between Clare Island and the smaller islands, 

 and the ground outside Clare Island, is rocky or beset with large stones, and 

 unsuitable for trawling. 



The present list is manifestly an incomplete one ; and it is probable that 

 a number of species would be added if the shallow water and Zostera beds 

 amongst the islands were explored with fine-meshed nets. In order to make 

 up for this deficiency, the names of common west-coast fishes which are ound 

 at Blacksod Bay, to the north, and at Ballynakill Harbour and Inishbofin, to 

 the south, have been inserted in brackets when there is no reason for 

 supposing them to be absent from Clew Bay. The list, however, must 

 not be regarded as exhaustive as regards either Blacksod or Ballynakdl and 

 Bofin. 



K.I. A. PBOC, VOL. XXXI. A 19 



