SUMMARY AND GENERAL REPORT. 
I have the honour of submitting the following Report on the 
scientific investigations for the year ending Kith October, 1902. 
The season has been an extraordinarily successful one, especially 
with regard to such mid-water fishes as the herring, the mackerel, 
and the salmon. Trawlers have been catching, moreover, more 
ground fishes than usual, but the season was to them a detrimental 
one to some extent on account of the immense numbers of small 
haddocks which appeared to be distributed all over the North Sea. 
Our trawling experiments show that the ground fishes were present 
in most of the bays, also in unusually large numbers. The average 
catch for flat fishes was turbot 4, sole 21, plaice 105, dabs 121. 
flounders 5— total HIT. The highest previous average was for 
plaice 180 in 1901, for dabs 90 in 1900. for soles 20 in 1893 and 
in 1891. and for the total flat fishes 231 in 1900. The results 
for tiie whole of the experiments since 1892 are indicated in the 
form of a chart — (Chart II.)— and this clearly shows that our in- 
shore waters are becoming richer in plaice, and more especially 
in dabs. 
This chart indicates also the results obtained by the first haul 
since 1 85)7. In this case all the fishes captured by the trawl are 
enumerated, while in the whole day’s experiment to which the above 
figures refer, it is only the marketable fishes which are counted. 
For this period of years, moreover (1897 to 1902), a series of charts 
(Charts III. to VII.) have been prepared with a view to contrasting 
the results which are to be obtained by a haul of one hour’s duration 
with those to be got by our complete experiment. These show that 
while the shorter experiment is sufficient to indicate the general 
nature of a particular station as regards proportions and kinds of 
fishes, it is not to be relied upon to indicate whether a station or 
area is gaining or otherwise in its fish population. 
