SEA FISHERIES LABORATORY. 107 



At the Scottish Fishery Board's Marine Hatchery,* 

 Dunbar, some experiments were made last spring (1894) 

 by Mr. Harold Dannevig, in which he endeavoured to rear 

 young Plaice. He succeeded in keeping the newly hatched 

 Plaice alive in filtered sea-water till they attained the age 

 of 20 days by feeding them on material collected by tow- 

 net in Dunbar Harbour, but owing to stormy weather, the 

 water became loaded with fine mud, which was collected 

 in the tow-net along with the food-material and could not 

 be readily separated from it. This killed the young fish, 

 and so brought the experiment to an untimely end. An 

 examination of the tow-net material showed that it 

 consisted chiefly of Copepoda, in various stages of 

 development, and other young Crustacea. 



The following list gives the result of an examination 

 of the stomachs of 296 young fish from various parts of 

 the district. The list is divided up into five columns, 

 giving the locality, date, number of fishes examined, 

 range of size in inches, and the contents of the stomachs, 

 the limit of size being three inches in length. The size of 

 the smallest fish received during the year was half-an-inch, 

 they were collected at Lytham by Mr. Ascroft, who 

 kindly sent them to us, and an examination of the stomachs 

 showed them to be filled with the Copepod Eurytemora 

 affinis, Poppe. Later on in the year we received a few 

 more small fish, also half-an-inch in length, from Capt. 

 Eccles, New Brighton. These had been caught near 

 Deposit Buoy, Horse Channel, Mersey entrance, but in 

 this case the stomachs were empty. 



* An interesting description of the hatchery at Dunbar, and an 

 account of the very successful hatching operations carried on last spring 

 and summer, are given in Part III of the Twelfth Annual Report of the 

 Fishery Board for Scotland. 



