SHA FISHERIES LABORATORY. 127 
misleading, and there is probably great individual variation. 
Such information as we want can only be got by con- 
tinuous work at sea, tow-netting and trawling periodically, 
as Mr. Dawson proposes to do with the new steamer, 
supplemented by work in the laboratory in determining 
the exact condition of the reproductive organs and in iden- 
tifying the ova and larvee of the fish. 
Another important matter is the movement of the fish 
throughout the year in our area, and the valuable statistics 
which Mr. Dawson has been able to collect already throw 
same light upon that. There seems no doubt that here, 
as they have found in Scotland also, the Plaice, and 
probably other fish, spawn at considerable distances from 
the land, well outside the 3 mile limit, on off-shore banks. 
The advantages to a species of fish producing pelagic 
egos in spawning over a bank far out from land are 
obvious. There is less chance of the embryonic and larval 
stages being washed ashore; without being in too deep 
water, they are removed from the many dangers of a 
coast; they are more likely to be in water of suitable and 
fairly constant specific gravity; and there is more chance 
of the larval stages finding suitable nutriment in the 
embryos and other young stages of the numerous inver- 
tebrata which frequent such banks, and which rise up 
from bottom to surface in their younger stages and sink 
down again to bottom in later stages, so giving the young 
fish in the intermediate waters two chances at their prey. 
It is only then at a somewhat later stage of the early life 
history that the young Plaice, &c., come into the shallow 
inshore waters which we talk of as ‘“‘ nurseries.” There is 
then both a vertical circulation, from near the bottom (as 
ova) up to near the surface (as embryos and larvee) and 
then down again (as immature fish) to the bottom, and 
also a horizontal circulation, from the offshore spawning 
