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Part III. — Eighth Annual Report 
It has now been demonstrated that the eggs of almost all food-fishes 
(except those of the herring) are pelagic, and float at or near the surface 
of the sea, where they are hatched. This is the case with the ova 
of plaice, dabs, soles, turbot, brill, whiting, cod, ling, haddock, gurnard, 
&c. I have also shown that the old idea held by Buckland and others, 
that sea-fishes come into bays and estuaries to spawn is erroneous. A 
few unimportant species, such as the common dab and the long rough 
dab, and to some extent the flounder and gurnard, spawn partly in the 
territorial waters ; the great majority, as plaice, lemon soles, turbot, brill, 
cod, whiting, haddock, &c, spawn at distances more or less remote from 
shore. The floating eggs and the newly-hatched embryos are, however, 
carried in a large number of cases by the currents towards the shore; hence 
many young fishes may be found in great numbers in the waters around 
the coast, where they obtain abundance of food and shelter. Many others 
are carried seawards ; and there is little doubt that the young of those 
which spawn at considerable distances from shore, such as the ling and 
turbot, are chiefly to be found in the offshore waters. By the use of the 
tow-nets it has been shown that the ova of haddock, cod, ling, and plaice 
may be got up to thirty miles from shore ; the ova of the turbot have been 
found fifty miles off. Off the mouth of the Firth of Forth pelagic ova are 
frequently collected in large numbers, mainly those of the cod, haddock, 
whiting, lemon sole, and dabs. 
In order to determine the relative distribution of immature fish, 
special observations have been made on board the steamer ' Garland,' by 
the employment of a specially constructed fine-meshed trawl-net, resem- 
bling generally the net used in the shrimp fishing in the Sol way Firth. This 
net is 32 feet long, the cod-end being 8 feet in length ; it is fixed to an 
18-feetbeam. The largest meshes are one inch, and the smallest half an 
inch, so that it is well adapted to capture very small fish. The observa- 
tions have been made chiefly in the Firth of Forth and St Andrews 
"Bay ; but also at other parts of the east coast, namely, off Montrose and 
the Aberdeenshire coast, in the Moray Firth, and at the Orkney Islands. 
Hauls were also made at offshore fishing grounds, at distances from shore of 
from ten to twenty-two miles, and in water up to above fifty fathoms in 
depth. 
The total number of fish captured was 42,088, belonging to about 
forty species. Excluding at present those species which are of no 
economic importance, and those of which the number obtained is small, 
the total number of immature cod, ling, haddock, whiting, gurnard, 
plaice, lemon sole, flounder, common dab, long rough dab, &c, obtained 
was 33,297 out of a total of 34,803 of these kinds captured. The data 
are therefore pretty extensive ; and as this is the first time an attempt 
has been made to accurately investigate the distribution of immature 
fish, they will repay careful consideration. 
In Table IV. I have tabulated the immature adult specimens according 
to their sizes, a thick line being drawn between the adult and the imma- 
ture. It will be noticed how various was the proportion between the 
adult and the young in the different species. This, together with other 
facts, shows that the habitat and habits of young fishes vary very much, 
for the trawl, of coursg, can only work on a limited portion of the sea 
bottom. Nevertheless, it is curious that while 1118 immature plaice 
were caught, and only 119 adults, the immature lemon soles numbered 
less than half of the adults. Again, only 451 immature haddocks were 
captured, as compared with 124 adults; while there were 26,179 
immature whitings, and only 296 adults. The immense number of 
very small whitings caught (the majority under four inches in length) 
