261 



Fart HI. — Twenty-fifth Annual Report 



Rather more than half the number of stomachs examined were found 

 to be empty or the food they contained could not be satisfactorily 

 determined ; fully forty-five per cent, of them were the stomachs of 

 female fish, and fifty-two per cent, males ; a few had their reproductive 

 organs so immature that it was considered doubtful whether they were 

 milters or spawners. Those found to contain food that could be 

 identified numbered two hundred and forty-three. Of these stomachs 

 about fifty-two and a half per cent, were those of female fishes, two were 

 doubtful, and the others those of male fishes, as shown in the subjoined 

 Table. 



Table II. 



Table showing the proportion of stomachs containing food and those 

 containing no food that could be identified, the proportion of 

 males to females, and the names of the districts from which they 

 were sent. 



Names of the 

 Districts. 



Stomachs 



containing 



Food. 



Stomachs 

 containing 

 No Food. 



Totals of 

 2 and $ and ? 



Total 



Number of 



the Stomachs 



Examined. 



2 



6 



? 



2 



6 



? 



2 



6 



? 



Loch Yyne 

 Clyde 



Loch Broom 

 Stornoway 

 Anstruther 

 Peterhead, Wick, 

 Shetland. 



42 



42 







27 



8 

 8 



36 

 41 





 24 

 13 







1 

 1 

 

 

 

 



26 

 41 

 40 



2 

 15 







32 



48 

 35 



6 

 20 









 4 

 

 

 

 



68 

 83 

 40 

 29 

 23 

 8 



68 

 89 

 35 

 30 

 33 

 



1 

 5 

 . 

 

 

 



137 Stomachs 

 177 „ 



75 



59 



56 „ 

 8 



Totals - 



127 



114 



2 



124 



141 



4 



251 



255 



6 



512 „ 



243 



269 



512 



Description of the Food observed in the Stomachs of Herrings sent from 

 Loch Fyne, the Firth of Clyde, Loch Broom, Stornoway, 

 Anstruther, and other places. 



In describing the food observed in these herrings' stomachs, the various 

 samples from the same place or district are arranged together under the 

 name of the district and according to the date on which they were 

 examined, and for convenient reference the names of the districts 

 arranged as in Table II. 



(1) Loch Fyne Herrings. 



December, 1904. — The stomachs of seventeen herrings sent from Loch 

 Fyne were examined at this date. They all contained some food, but it 

 was so disintegrated by the digestive fluids that only in three examples 

 could the nature of it be determined, and even in these to a limited 

 extent. The food in these three stomachs appeared to consist exclusively 

 of Schizopods belonging to the Euphausiidae. Neither the species or 

 genus could be satisfactorily determined, but probably they were all 

 young Nyctiphanes, norvegica as that species is common in Loch Fyne. 



