41 
It is worth noting, therefore, in trying to understand the 
marked superiority of the dabs according to the evidence of the first 
haul, that this species presents a smaller proportion of sizes com- 
pared with plaice which would be accounted marketable. Our 
reports show that they are present in large numbers from about 
4 to 5 inches, and were the meshes of the net fine enough many 
still smaller would also be caught. The marketable dabs occur in 
greater numbers in moderate depths outside our stations. 
For reasons such as these then I am disposed to take the 
evidence of the first haul, as I pointed out more fully in the report 
for 1901, for an approximately accurate indication, not only of the 
relative numbers of the fish which are liable to be caught by such a 
net as that we have employed, but of the proportional numbers 
actually present above a certain size. In our district, therefore, so 
near the shore as our trawling stations, when the smaller sizes of 
these species are taken into consideration, the dab at once advances 
into a place of prominence as a member of the flat fish fauna of the 
southern area. The dab becomes also more predominant in this 
area towards the south, suffering, however, a z*egression in Bhth 
Bay. It would appear, moreover, that a change has taken place in 
quite recent years favouring the dab, since, in fact, about 1901. 
But similar, if less prominent, improvements appear to have taken 
place in the earlier years of the experiments. It is well to note also 
that the first haul indicates even more strongly than the eomplete 
experiment the conditions which have been mentioned with regard 
to the northern stations. (See Skate Roads.) 
The fish population of the sandy bays of the Northumberland 
coast may thus be divided into two main groups, a northern and a 
southern, and these again run into minor local peculiarities. 
A short experiment which was made in Blackpool Bay, near 
Hartlepool, on 2nd August, 1897, gives an opportunity of instituting 
comparison in this respect with a district to the south. In 2h hours 
in the early morning, in foggy weather, the catch obtained, reduced 
to the standard of one hour's trawling, was : — 
45 
O 
S 
8 
'5 
outer. 
a 
- 
M 
u 
o 
■4-. 
per hour, marketable 
16 
19-6 
7-6 
l's-,s 
tiOB, marketable ... 
555 
0806 
36-39 
100 
lion, total catch 
105 
5737 
5158 
100 
rer hour, total catch 
1 
45 
49 
95 
oo 
L28 
