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for there must grow up a 3-group if the plaice is left to itself. We may 

 draw this conclusion, partly from analogy with other fishes (Plenr. flestts £■ 

 limanda), partly because we can trace such a one already in the seas to- 

 wards the south, where the plaice-fishery is not carried on very much. 



In order to see how the plaice look at spots where for years there has 

 been no intense fishery, I got measurements of plaice from the Icelandic fjords 

 (table IX). They have been caught by the fishermen in plaice-seines with large 

 meshes, exclusively in order to catch as many and as large fishes as possible 

 in the shortest possible time. The small annual series, & 1, are therefore 

 not represented at all in the table (they go through the meshes), and the 2- 

 group is scarce too, as the fishermen, of course, have searched most for the 

 3-group . I cannot prove that it is the latter which is so strongly represented 

 in table IX by fishes of c. 17—29 inches; but it must be the 3-group I sup- 

 pose, if the plaice have not a 4-group — and there is nothing to indicate that. 



To prevent any mistakes, I shall add that while the plaice in table I 

 are often picked out among a great number of fishes, consequently not represen- 

 tative of any seize-groups as these occur in nature, the fishes in table IX are 

 measured promiscuously just as they came up with the seine. Only, as the 

 latter had large meshes, the specimens smaller than c. 8 — 10 inches were not 

 caught. 



In some of the Icelandic fjords then there is a 3-group, but is it missing 

 in the Cattegat. We might suppose, certainly, that it emigrates from the G'atte- 

 gat, as it seems to do from the Baltic Sea and the Limfjord, but this supposi- 

 tion is very improbable, 1) because we still find traces of a 3-group in the 

 Cattegat in such large fishes as do not in size follow immediately after the 2- 

 group, but are much larger (21 — 22 inches long) — (see table I); these large 

 fishes are found at places where till this day the plaice-seine has been least 

 used, because the water has been, now so deep, now filled up with stones on 

 the bottom; 2) we can remember that the plaice a few years ago were larger 

 in the Cattegat than they are now. — The latter is a fact everybody has 

 observed who has had anything to do with this matter for some years; nay. 

 the consumers who only eat the fish can tell us so. But it cannot be proved 

 with figures, nobody, as far as I know, having written down 10 — 15 years 

 ago what the plaice used to weigh in the Cattegat — nor have the fishes been 

 measured*). 



I am sorry this has not been done; for I am now obliged to 



*) Compare however Chapter II later on, 



