of the Fishery Boardj for Scotland. 



63 



west of Scotland. An examination of the chart shows that the deep 

 water, i.e. under a hundred and above fifty fathoms, extends westwards 

 between the south point of the Shetlands and Fair Isle, as a submarine 

 valley, the locality where the hauls were made being only eighty miles 

 from the 100-fathom line to the west. It is thus not improbable that 

 the fades of the fish-fauna in the region in question is connected with 

 the course of the current that is known to run eastwards between Fair 

 Isle and Shetland, in the same way as Cunningham has shown the 

 fauna along the Dutch coast resembles in some i-espects that of the 

 English Channel. 



All the hake except five were of marketable size. The general range 

 of the adults was found to be from thirty-three to thirty-eight inches, 

 some were taken over forty two inches in length, very few were under 

 twenty inches. One nearly twelve inches in length (300 mm.) was 

 taken in the deep water in October, and another of 222 mm. (8| inches) 

 in the Moray Firth, also in October. No small hake were taken in the 

 fine-meshed net around the otter-trawl, but on one occasion 131 were 

 taken in the Clyde in the shrimp- net of the " Garland, viz. in thirty-five 

 fathoms in the channel midway between the south point of Arran and 

 the coast of Ayrshire, on 15th December. The bulk measured from 

 55 mm. (2^ inches) to 123 mm. (4| inches), and one was 141 mm (5f 

 inches). With the exception of the last mentioned, they formed a well- 

 defined group, the average or mean length of the fish being 83-2 mm. or 

 3| inches, and they were, I presume, the brood of the year. According 

 to Holt's observations on the west coast of Ireland, the hake spawns 

 from the end of March until July, and in Loch Fyne Dr. Williamson 

 found the eggs of the hake in April, June, July, and the first week in 

 August.* If the fish which measured 141 mm. were included in the 

 series, the intervening sizes being regarded as missing, the mean-size 

 would be raised to about 98 mm. or 3|- inches. One of these little hake, 

 114 mm. long, had in its stomach a goby which measured 50 mm. — a 

 fact which illustrates the early assumption of the piscivorous propensity 

 of the species. 



The trawlers land considerable quantities of hake, mostly from the 

 West Coast and from the region above indicated in the neighbourhood of 

 Fair Isle. Comparatively few come from the waters adjoining the 

 East Coast, but the fish is said to be more abundant on the Danish side. 

 No hake were obtained in the nine hauls on the Fisher Bank at the end 

 of May or beginning of June. 



Tusk (Brosmius brosme). 



Of this, the most typically deep-sea form included in the produce of 

 the trawl fishery, only seventy-four specimens were caught, and all of 

 them were taken on the deep-sea grounds, off the Fair Isle, and east- 

 north-east and south-east and south of the Shetlands. None were taken 

 on the Fisher Bank. Steam-liners, which fish further north and north- 

 west in deeper water than the trawlers, land proportionally much larger 

 quantities. All those obtained were marketable except two; one of 

 them measured twelve-and-a-half inches. The general range of size is 

 from about eighteen to twenty-eight inches ; some measured thirty-nine 

 inches. 



Cat-fish {Anarrhichas lupus). 



Of this species 299 specimens were procured, of which 96 were taken 

 in the deep water on the north-eastern grounds, thirty- two on the 

 * Seventeenth Ann. Rep. Fish. Board for Scotland, Part III., p. 9G. 



