172 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Channel and a portion of the Mersey estuary lying above 

 the Liverpool Landing Stage are also fished on. 



Now with regard to the relative quantities of shrimps 

 and immature fishes caught in the shrimp trawl, con- 

 siderable differences exist on different parts of the whole 

 area referred to above. We have, therefore, separated the 

 hauls taken on the portion lying seaward from Burbo 

 Bank and south of Queen's Channel from the portion 

 including Queen's, Formby, Crosby and Horse Channels, 

 and the eastern part of Hock Channel. For convenience 

 the former portion will be referred to hereafter as Area A 

 and the latter as Area B. The hauls taken on Area A 

 are abstracted in Table I., those taken on Area B on 

 Table II. 



In Plate B we have represented graphically the results 

 of Tables III. and IY. The method adopted has been 

 to take each fish separately, and to superpose the curves 

 representing its distribution on the two sub-divisions of 

 the shrimping ground referred to above. Curves L, II., 

 III., IV., and V. represent the variation from month to 

 month in the numbers of immature whiting, plaice, dabs, 

 soles and shrimps taken per average haul. In all these 

 curves the number plotted along the vertical axes repre- 

 sent these average hauls ; months are rejn-esented on the 

 horizontal axes. The vertical scale of I., II., and III. is 

 the same ; the corresponding scale of IY. is one-tenth, and 

 Y. one-twentieth that of I. This change of scale has been 

 necessary on account of the small values dealt with in 

 IY. and Y. In all the curves the thick line represents 

 the average hauls on Area A, the thin line the average 

 hauls on Area B. It ought to be remembered that the 

 fishes dealt with in these tables and curves are nearly all 

 immature. The hauls quoted on pp. 167-168 represent 

 fairly their average sizes. 



