﻿Appendix IV. 

 On the labelling of living Plaice. 



Through not a few years I have tried to label living plaice, in order to place 

 them in our seas again, and thus, with the assistance of the fishermen who after- 

 wards eateli them, tu obtain information of the places where they are fished, and 

 of the size which the labelled fish have reached in the mean time. 



The lirst experiments showed, in spite of the deficient labelling, that a con- 

 siderable number of fish placed in the sea are caught again, often nearly ' ;; in 

 the course of a fishing-season, and that we, therefore, by improving the labelling, 

 might hope in this way tu obtain reliable information of the migrations and 

 growth of the plaice; nor have I been disappointed in this hope. — 



Without lure entering into the details of the labelling, 1 shall mention thai 

 the main points in these experiments are to label the fish 1 in such a way that 

 it does not hurt them, '1 so well that the labels do not drop off. '■'> in such a 

 conspicuous way that the fishermen see the labels, and 4) we must make the 

 fishermen interested in the matter so that they send in the fish they have caught. 



The first labels 1 used would not last very long (2 — 3 months); afterward- 1 

 have used some (two buttons of hone with a No. burnt into them, kept firmly in 

 their position by a silver thread right through the fish between the interspinous 

 hones of the dorsal tin i which last longer — about a year or more. While the 

 forme]' labels, as a rule, only gave information as to l 1 how many of the labelled 

 fish there were caught again, and 2) where these had gone in the mean time, the 

 latter also give information as to the growth of the fish. These hitter labels have 

 since almost exclusively been used in the Limfjord. — In the following list I have 

 given the results of such a labelling of c. 100<) plaice in the months of March & 

 April 1893. It will he seen that in all 51 were caught and sent in to the fishery 

 officers and to Mr. Tachou. By far the greater number of these fish were delivered 

 up at Thisted Bredning, where Mr. Tachou has understood how to make the 

 fishermen interested in this matter; the latter fact is evidently the main reason 

 why so many labels have come in from Thisted. — It will he -ecu also that the 

 fish grow very fast in the Limfjord cmp. ante), so that for instance a plaice 



