of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



157 



namely, 6 to Northumberland, 4 to Durham, 21 to Yorkshire, and 2 to 

 Lincolnshire. Within the Firth of Forth the drift-bottles took varying 

 directions, as they did in the Moray Firth, the course apparently 

 depending upon the prevailing winds as well as upon the tides. On 

 the north side, however, that is along the Fife Coast, the direction 

 was eastward or outwards, some of the bottles passing northwards to 

 St Andrews Bay or even to Arbroath, Forfarshire. Others joined the 

 great outer current passing southwards towards the English Coast. 

 This also occurred on the south coast of the Firth. 



When the speed of the currents is considered in connection with the 

 rate of development of the pelagic eggs, it is obvious that the latter, 

 before the young fishes emerge, may be transported considerable distances. 

 The period of incubation varies in different species, and according to the 

 temperature, from three or four days to two or three weeks, and for some 

 time after hatching the young fishes are helpless and unable to make 

 their way against the current. It would therefore appear that the eggs 

 thrown into the water on the offshore grounds on the East Coast of 

 Scotland are carried southwards, and the larval fishes distributed far from 

 where the eggs were spawned. The inshore waters on the coast of 

 Haddingtonshire appear to receive their chief supplies of young fishes 

 from the spawning areas in the neighbourhood of the Bell Rock, and even 

 from those off the Forfarshire Coast. On the other hand, very large 

 numbers of the floating eggs and larval fishes derived from the spawning- 

 areas of the Firth of Forth and St Andrews Bay must be carried to the 

 northern parts of the east coast of England. 



In July two bottles were found on the other side of the North Sea, 

 and they furnish interesting evidence of the apparent course of the 

 currents from the English coast. One of them belonged to a group of 

 three put into the sea off Musselburgh, in the Firth of Forth, on 23rd 

 November 1894, of which two have been recovered. One of the two 

 was found near Redcar, Yorkshire, on 17th February 1895, and the 

 other ou 20th July, at Ording, Schleswig, Germany. In the other case, 

 five bottles were put into the sea three miles off the Isle of May, on 

 28th November 1894, and two of this lot were also recovered; one on 

 17th February at West Hartlepool, Durham, and the other on 18th July 

 on the island of Heligoland. These examples seem lo show that the 

 current after or before reaching the neighbourhood of the Wash, passes 

 eastward to the coast of the Continent ; none of the bottles have been 

 found on the English coast south of Lincolnshire, and it is probable that 

 others will be recovered in the course of the next few months on the 

 German and Danish coasts. Should further observations prove the 

 currents to move in the direction indicated, it would go far to explain 

 the existence of the immense nurseries of immature flat-fish in the bight 

 between Holland and Schleswig, which the English trawlers desire to 

 have closed, and which are believed to form a great source of supply to 

 the North Sea. 



