of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
279 
young turbot, from 1 up to 5 inches, are abundant near the tidal margin 
on sandy beaches ; that the older forms, from 5 to 1 1 inches, are plentiful 
in somewhat deeper water in sandy bays, such as that of St Andrews ; 
while the mature adults are met with only in the deeper water, iu general 
beyond the three-mile limit, It is interesting to note the independent 
remarks of Mr Holt on this subject. They came into my hands after the 
foregoing was written. He writes* — 4 This table, so far as it goes, ap- 
1 pears to show that no mature turbot penetrate into quite such shallow 
1 water as some of the immature forms, and also that no immature forms 
1 get into such deep water as a proportion of the mature. It would also 
' appear that tho closing of waters within the 10-fathom line would pro- 
1 tect a very large proportion of the immature forms, though, at the same 
1 time, in the case of such places as Loch Swilly, a large number of fine 
' fish might be prevented from reaching the market. Fulton is of opinion 
4 that on the East Coast the majority of the young turbot are on the olf- 
' shore grounds. It seems to me that the evidence is all to the contrary. 
4 Fulton finds a difficulty in accepting the statement that " thousands of 
' ;4 young turbot may be found at some places in the shallow waters and 
' " pools on the beach, and that they are largely destroyed by shrimp- 
4 "fishers." 
4 I have myself taken turbot about 2 inches long at the sandy margin, 
4 at half-tide, opposite the laboratory at St Andrews, whenever I made 
4 use of a fine seine-net at that place (in September and October), and do 
4 not doubt that such smaller forms as Buckland describes occur there in 
4 the earlier part of the year. I have (off the west coast of Ireland) found 
4 a number of minute post-larval forms, ranging from \ to inch, which 
4 appear to me to belong to the turbot ; they occurred at various depths 
4 between 10 and 32 fathoms. I believe that after the completion of the 
4 post-larval period the young turbot at once approach the margin, and 
4 reach it before the end of the first year of their life. Otherwise, I do 
4 not see how the absence of intermediate forms from our collections is to 
4 be accounted for. They do not occur amongst the young plaice in 
* shallow water, nor amongst the young dabs, which extend into depths 
4 of about 30 fathoms, nor in the deeper water — down to 80 fathoms — 
4 frequented by the young of the witch, pole-dab, lemon-dab, and long 
4 rough-dab. We have, in fact, no record of their occurrence except at 
4 the margin.' 
My own experience up to date is stated in the Report to Loud Dal- 
housie's Commission,! and also in the preceding pages. The young turbot 
of the stages beyond 10 mm, are generally found at the margin of the 
beach, or in the surface tow-nets close inshore, the smaller forms in the 
pelagic condition, the larger (about 2 inches), as Mr Holt says, in the 
seines used from the beach, while those of 5 or 6 inches occur in the 
salmon stake-nets on the west sands. The older forms, from 9 to 11 
inches, abound further out, and formerly were caught by the various 
kinds of trawlers. It is rare that a large turbot is found in the bay, and, 
so far as known, never in the ripe condition. As a rule, such large 
examples are out of condition and useless as food. 
In comparing the foregoing form with the brill it is found that the 
latter in Scottish waters spawns considerably earlier than the turbot, and, 
as formerly shown by Raffaele, Holt, and myself, the egg is much larger. 
We have not yet been able to rear the young from the ova to such a 
stage as to place the life-history beyond doubt, but Mr Holt has recently 
procured many examples of a post-larval form off the west coast of 
Ireland, which seems to be the earlier condition of the species just men- 
tioned — especially as they show well-marked otocystic spines and other 
* Report of the Council of the Roy. Dub. Soc, 1891, pp. 294 and 295. 
t Page 360, 1884. 
