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In order to show the size of the plaice elsewhere, where there has 

 not been fished too much, I shall refer to table IX from Iceland. 



The fish here have been caught with place-seines, such as are 

 used by the fishermen in the Cattegat. The fish are measured by Mr. 

 Lundbecl; on a trip in a Danish fishing-cutter along the shores of Ice- 

 land, where they are goiug now just because the fishing has become so 

 poor in the Cattegat. Compared to our largest plaice (table I, column 

 3 — 6) the Icelandic are indeed giants, most of them being about 16 — 18 

 inches, and the largest ones about 29 inches. If fishing-gear with which 

 all sizes could be taken had been employed at Iceland, I suppose we should 

 have got a good survey of the groups; now we see only a fully developed 

 3-group, table IX, column 1 ; it would correspond very well in size to the 

 supposed 3-group which we miss in the Limfjord, table V, column 3 & 4, 

 and which must be supposed to emigrate to the German Sea. 



The plaice of the German Sea are a large race, probably about the 

 size of the Icelandic. W. Fulton states for instance that the plaice on the 

 shores of Scotland become as long as 28 English inches, and that they do 

 not become ripe, in the earliest cases, till they are 12 Eng. inches long. 

 The plaice of the Baltic and a few from the Cattegat are ripe already when 

 they are 7 inches. . 



In the Cattegat, however, the larger and the smaller races are surely 

 mixed together, and they cannot well be distinguished from one another 

 there, save by a mere estimate of the tables. 



Though it must, consequently, be sonsidered probable that the Ice- 

 landic plaice in table IX represent a race which, on an average, is somewhat 

 larger than that to which the Cattegat-plaice generally may be said to be- 

 long, yet there is no doubt that the latter are very small, and that they have 

 scarcely been so small always as they are at present. I am sorry I cannot 

 here give the measures. To do so I must have commenced the researches 

 about 10 years ago; but I do not think that any capable man who personally 

 has had to do with fishery during these years, will deny the fact, that the 

 plaice in the Cattegat has decreased in size in these later years, if he will 

 speak according to his conviction. I shall return to this matter later on. 



Of course it is not my opinion that no large plaice is to be found in 

 the Cattegat now; such are constantly caught as yet when the fishermen 

 go out on the deep parts of the eastern Cattegat where, from various rea- 

 sons, the plaice has been left more in peace ; what I want to say is, that it 

 is now necessary to search much more for such large fish than it was a 



