8 
The reader on referring to Table I. will note the striking figures 
obtained for plaice at our two excursions to Goswick Sands. These 
sands lie to the north of Holy Island, and afford a considerable 
stretch of" good fishing ground, though the rough ground at each 
end, and outside in some six fathoms at the north end, must be 
carefully remembered as we have good reason to know. 
On the 12th August we made five hauls between 8 a.m. and 
3 p.m., with the results given in the Table. The 586 fish was made 
up principally of plaice, of which 474 were obtained. The immature 
fish, as will be seen from page 12, also consisted largely of plaice. 
This is a result which was only approached to in 1894, when we got 
371 plaice in Skate Eoads, the bay to the south of Holy Island. 
There was evidence of plenty of food for these fishes being present. 
Great shoals of sand eels could be seen almost at any time during the 
day, and we found that the majority of the flat fishes were feeding 
upon them. The sand eels attracted also a large number of terns, 
cormorants and gannets. 
It is quite possible that the large proportion of plaice may be to 
some extent explained from the operations of the Dunbar hatchery. 
The hatchery was established in 1894, and as in the early years the 
whole of the fry was deposited in the Firth of Forth and St. Andrew’s 
Bay, it would be surprising if the fish caught in such a likely place 
as Goswick Sands did not include some of those artificially hatched 
at Dunbar. This becomes more probable if we consider the results 
of the experiments on currents conducted by Dr. Fulton for the 
Scottish Fishery Board. Dr. Fulton kindly wrote me on Oct. 10th: 
“ I find that in 1894 and 1895 we put into the Firth of Forth, 
St. Andrew’s Bay, and off Dunbar about 64,000,000 plaice fry. From 
the set of the currents on the coast, I should expect your area to benefit 
as much as ours.” 
It is thus more than probable that the large takes in plaice at 
Goswick Sands are made up of many of the survivors of the fry 
placed in the Forth off Dunbar in 1894-5 and even later. 
This would not explain, however, the large catch of plaice 
obtained at Skate Roads in 1894. But there is this difference 
between the two cases. At Skate Roads the numbers were not kept 
up at the second visit that year, after an interval of forty days; nor 
in the following years. At Goswick Sands, our second visit on 
Sept. 5th, at an interval of a fortnight, resulted in a very similar 
catch to the first : there were 458 plaice in a total of 609, 
