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lasts from November — April, though with a maximum iu January — February. 

 It has been mentioned how it is only in certain parts of the Cattegat 

 (especially the deep eastern parts) that the plaice is found in the breeding- 

 time, and that the spawning individuals on the other hand are rare at 

 Aalbsek and the Skaw (the southern side). In our smaller seas the spawn- 

 ing plaice are found both in the Great and the Lesser Belt (particularly 

 in the southern part of the latter); further they are known in the western 

 Baltic Sea from the waters between the isle of Funen, Sleswick, and Hol- 

 stein. Great numbers of spawning plaice are known also from the Baltic 

 Sea east of the iles of Meen and Sealand (table I). But in our fjords and 

 shallow sounds spawning plaice are rarer; even in the Limfjord they are 

 found only singly, so that we must say that the plaice spawns in our more 

 open seas only, such as the eastern parts of the Cattegat, the Belts, and the 

 Baltic Sea (from the Sound I have no positive information). Winther's 

 statement (Tidsslzrift for Fislceri 1874) that the plaice in May goes in on 

 the seashore to spawn is evidently wrong. The plaice goes in on the shores 

 in spring, not however, in order to spawn, but in order to eat. 



When spawning plaice in the Cattegat nowadays are so rare at all 

 places but Anholt, east of Lses0, and on the whole the deep eastern Catte- 

 gat, this is quite in accordance with the statement that these parts are the 

 last places of refuge for the large plaice, or at any rate places situated near 

 these. (See a chart of the Cattegat. »Hauchs« Togter. Atlas). Already 

 Kr0yer says in 1843 — 45 (»Danmarks Fiske«) that the large plaice must be 

 looked for on deep water, so that this evidently always, in the main, has been 

 the normal order. At Sseby the fishermen expressed to me their astonish- 

 ment at the increasing rarity of spawning plaice (fish filled with spawn) in 

 the neighbourhood of Sseby in later years; formerly they were common 

 enough. It appears to me that it is easy to understand that it is so; for 

 every plaice winch reaches a somewhat larger size, i. e. approaches the 

 time when it is grown-up and is going to spawn, is now fished in the 

 neighbourhood of Sseby, so that, even if many fishes wanted to stay there 

 in their mature period, they are no longer permitted to do so. 



The number of spawning plaice, therefore, has evidently been much 

 diminished in the Cattegat by this eager pursuit, perhaps also in the Lim- 

 fjord*) (scarcely in our other seas), and they are therefore in the Cattegat 

 principally to be found at or near those places only, where the condition 



*) They use here a great number of fishing-gear (seines) which fish very intensely, 

 more than in our other enclosed seas. — 



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