238 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



These are all the hauls on record in which less than 

 three shrimps have been caught in one haul, and in most 

 of the cases the wind has had some element of East in its 

 direction. There are, of course, other hauls on record in 

 which fair catches of shrimps have been made under 

 apparently somewhat similar conditions. Too much may, 

 indeed, be made of such observations, for fully to investi- 

 gate the causes of such local scarcities of shrimps would 

 necessitate a thorough examination of weather records for 

 the week or fortnight preceding the date of the hauls. 

 But the observations I have quoted show with some degree 

 of probability that the direction of the wind does affect 

 the abundance of shrimps in this locality — though not 

 necessarily in others. 



5. A Haul of Dogfishes. 



An exceptionally large catch of these fishes was made 

 on September 20th, 1904, on the grounds near Liverpool 

 N.W. Lightship. On these grounds one usually expects 

 to get a fair catch of plaice, soles, dabs, skate, ray and 

 other edible fishes, with, perhaps, half a dozen or so dog- 

 fishes. On this occasion, however, the net came up, alter 

 about one hour's drag, apparently full of dogfishes. The 

 latter were counted, and about 350 in all were found 

 among the catch. The other fishes taken were 35 dabs, 

 27 grey gurnards, 14 soles, 9 lemon soles, 3 each red and 

 yellow gurnards, 3 plaice and 1 skate. The net had 

 evidently encountered a "school" of dogfishes. The 

 latter belonged to three species — Scyllium canicula, 

 S. catulus and Acanthias vulgaris. The latter was the 

 commonest form, but the exact numbers of each species 

 were not counted. All the dogfishes were cheerfully 

 destroyed by the men before being thrown overboard. 



