FISHES 



In the latest list of marine fishes of the Irish Sea — that of Herdman and 

 Dawson^ — 141 species are recorded, and owing to the amount of investigation 

 that has been carried out, both on the English and Irish sides of the Irish Sea, 

 this list is most probably a nearly exhaustive one. The present list, however, 

 includes only those fishes which have actually been recorded from Lancashire 

 shore waters, and from the sea within the 20-fathom line off the coast. Too 

 much, however, may be made of these niceties of zoological distribution, and 

 the differences between the piscine faunas of, say, Cumberland, Lancashire, and 

 Cheshire are no doubt due merely to the fact that none of these areas has 

 been thoroughly investigated. Taking wider areas we find that Fries, Ekstrom, 

 and Sundevall, in their History of Scandinavian Fishes, Sauvage and Giard in 

 the Catalogue des Poissons du Boulonnais, and Day in his British Fishes, give 

 what are practically the same lists of marine fishes. The slight differences 

 that exist between the three north-west English counties will no doubt 

 disappear on long-continued investigation. Thus both the Bonito, Thynnus 

 pelamys (Linn.), and the Sword-fish, Xiphias gladius,lAnn., have been recorded 

 from the coast of Cumberland, and the former has been taken off the Isle of 

 Man, while the latter has been caught in the Bristol Channel. Nevertheless, 

 neither has been, so far as I am aware, observed in strictly Lancashire waters. 



But in respect of the abundance and sizes of fishes very considerable 

 differences do exist even between such adjacent coastal waters as those of 

 Lancashire and Cumberland. In the Solway Firth, it is true, we do find a 

 fish fauna which resembles that of the Lancashire coast, but the Cumberland 

 coast in its southern portion is not characterized by that abundance of very 

 small fishes which we find in Lancashire waters. The greater part of the 

 latter is indeed a ' fish nursery ' on a gigantic scale. This is particularly the 

 case with regard to three great areas — the shallow water off the mouth of 

 the Mersey, the Ribble channels and their vicinity, and a great portion of 

 Morecambe Bay. On these grounds we find all through the year immense 

 numbers of small pleuronectid fishes, principally dabs, plaice, flounders, soles, 

 solenettes, and others. The cause of this remarkable segregation of immature 

 fishes is to be sought in the peculiar physical conditions which obtain off the 

 coast of Lancashire. The set of the tides is such as to convey small floating 

 objects from the offshore grounds and from the deep water off Carnarvon and 

 Cardigan bays into the shallow water on the coast of Lancashire, and to a less 

 extent that of Cumberland. This has been proved by the ' drift-bottle ' 

 experiments made by the Lancashire Sea Fishery Committee, and it is 

 familiar to coasters and others who are generally on the look out on the north 

 Lancashire and Cumberland coasts for wreckage in the case of vessels which 

 break up off Holyhead or off the Mersey. Now the deep water off the 

 coasts of Lancashire and Wales is frequented by mature pleuronectid and 



1 Fishes and Fisheries of the Irish Sea; Lancashire Sea Fisheries Memoir, No. 2. London : Geo. Philip and 

 Son, 1902. 



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