120 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
sea after capture) of a proportion of all catches varying from 
70 to 21 per cent. according to the fishing ground and month. 
It would also be illegal to land plaice of less than 22 
centimetres (about 8? inches) durmg the summer months. 
This would mean the rejection of from 90 to 51 per cent. 
of the plaice caught according to the ground and month. 
The averages for the whole seasons would be :— 
Under 20 cms. Under 22 cms. 
Blackpool to Liverpool Bar cme A2% 65% 
Off Mersey Estuary ie ae 2407 TT % 
Beaumaris and Red Wharf Bays 36% 50% 
These are the effects to be expected from the imposition 
of the International plaice-limits on the Lancashire and Welsh 
trawl-fisheries. 
The stake-net fisheries would be even more adversely 
affected, and the winter size-limits would probably destroy 
these fisheries altogether. It would often be quite impractic- 
able to return undersized plaice caught in a stake-net alive 
to the sea, so that the total abolition of these methods of 
fishing would probably be preferable to the imposition of 
size-limits of 20 and 22 centimetres. 
In considering the effect of legal size-limits upon the 
Irish Sea plaice fisheries as a whole, the migrations of the 
fish in local waters must be considered. This is discussed 
in the following article. 
