EFFECT ON YOUNG FISHES. 53 



the sea — in St Andrews Bay, for instance, in March, would 

 indicate the propriety of protecting them from all interference 

 on this head, especially as they are then frequently just above 

 the bottom. The very young sand-eels in the same way are 

 often in great numbers just over the bottom, and, as this fish is 

 perhaps next to the herring, the most important food-supply 

 for the more valuable food-fishes, it likewise should not be 

 interfered with. The enormous numbers of sand-eels on certain 

 fishing-banks is one of the features of spring, and they are 

 often mistaken by the fishermen for young herrings. The habit 

 of the adult in burying itself in moist sand at and near low 

 water is another illustration of the fact that a trawl may pass 

 frequently over the same area, and yet leave, irrespective of 

 those that escape through the meshes, a considerable number 

 of animals untouched. 



In the course of the ordinary trawling on the fishing-banks, 

 no indication of the great number and variety of the post-larval 

 and very young fishes is obtained. They are swept through the 

 meshes, or otherwise escape. Yet, on sinking the great tri- 

 angular mid- water net to within a fathom or two of the bottom, 

 or by using the bottom trawl-like tow-net, crowds of the post- 

 larval and very young food-fishes — flat and round — are 

 captured ; for example, those of the long-rough dab, lemon-dab, 

 top-knot, ling, frog-fish, gurnard, dragonet, herring, and other 

 forms. Neither trawler nor liner would seem to interfere at 

 the stages indicated with these on such areas. In the same 

 way, on other grounds, vast numbers of the young sand-eels, 

 from 15 to 40 mm. (that is, from | to lj% inches long) occur in 

 the surface-nets in May, of which the only knowledge hitherto 

 obtained was from the mouths of the fishes captured by liner or 

 trawler, as neither interfered with them directly or indirectly 

 in the pursuit of his calling. 



The young fishes, on escaping from the pelagic eggs, are at 

 first helplessly borne hither and thither by the currents, but 

 the nature of their pigment, or even their transparency in most 

 cases, probably proves protective. They are incapable of seeking 

 shelter anywhere for a considerable time. When the flat fishes 

 descend to the bottom their protective pigment on the upper 



