heavy elm wood, is 38 feet in length, and 2 feet in circumference at the middle, and is made to taper to the ends. Two trawl-heads (oval rings, 4 feet by 25 feet) are fixed to the beam, one at each end. The upper part of the bag-net, which is about 100 feet long, is fastened to the beam, while the lower part is attached to the ground-rope. The ends of the ground-rope are fastened to the trawl-beds, and being quite slack, the mouth of the bag-net forms a semicircle when dragged over the ground. The whole apparatus is fastened to the trawl-rope by means of the span or bridle, which is a rope double the length of the beam, and of a thickness equal to the trawl-rope. Each end of the span is fastened to the beam, and to the loop thus formed the trawlrope is attached. The ground-rope is usually an old rope, much weaker than the trawl-rope, so that in the event of the net coming in contact with any obstruction in the water, the ground-rope may break and allow the rest of the gear to be saved. Were the warp to break instead of the ground-rope, the whole apparatus, which is of considerable value, would be left at the bottom.'*

The object, it will thus be evident, is not to dredge but to sweep the bottom of the sea. This is done by the ground-rope, which passes smoothly over the sand, merely disturbing the fish that may be lying before it, and which dart forward into the bag of the net or into one of the side-pockets, from neither of which can they escape. It must be obvious that the trawl can only be used with effect on sand or smooth ground, the resort of flat fish of all descriptions.

A fisherman of Yarmouth describes the proportions which the different kinds of fish caught by the trawl bear to each other. From two to three tons are sometimes obtained from a three hours' trawl; the catch consists chiefly of haddocks and plaice, intermixed with other fish. An average day's fishing is a ton, in which there will be about three hundred weight of soles, ten or eleven hundred weight of haddocks, the remainder consisting of plaice and whiting, with a few turbot, cod, and brill. The fish change their locality according to the season. In very cold weather they retire into deep water for warmth. The trawler often obtains several kinds of fish that may have incautiously descended in search of some favourite food. The John Dory, the red mullet, the bream, the bass, and the cod, thus often find themselves unexpected captives within the fatal net, and add considerably to the value of the take.

The strongest objection made to the practice of trawling is its alleged tendency to exterminate the fish at the places where it is habitually used. Impartial testimony, unfortunately, is not to be obtained on this question, fishermen, like other persons, being

*Harvest of the Sea.' pp. 309-311.

biassed

biassed by their ideas of self-interest; but that trawling does not permanently exhaust the fishing-grounds seems to be well established, nor does it appear that it even frightens away the fish. Thirty trawlers have been seen working within hail of each other backwards and forwards for weeks together, and but little difference could be perceived between the catches from day to day or between the captures of the foremost and sternmost vessels. A Hull trawler is of opinion that the trawl stirs up the worms and crustacea that fish feed upon, and that they follow it as rooks do a plough.

It is clear from the preceding description of the trawl and its operation that the charge which has been brought against it, of destroying the spawn of fish, can have little or no foundation. Fish generally deposit their spawn on a hard, rocky, and weedy bottom, or on sand protected by rough ground over which the trawl is unable to work, and the alleged injury has been distinctly denied, the imaginary spawn brought up in the trawl-net being found, when examined, to be generally jelly-fish, zoophytes, and other gelatinous substances with which the sea abounds. Beamtrawling, therefore, in the open sea is, in the opinion of the Commissioners, a mode of fishing which requires no legislative interference, for if any trawling-ground should be overfished, the trawlers themselves would be the first to feel the evil result of it ; fish would become scarcer, and the produce of a day's work would diminish until it ceased to be remunerative: when that takes place trawling in that locality would therefore cease, and the fish would be left undisturbed until their great reproductive powers had restored their numbers, and the ground had again become profitable. The Commissioners, on a careful consideration of the whole of the evidence, arrived at the following conclusions:

1. That the supply of fish obtained on the coasts of the United Kingdom has not diminished of late years, but has increased, and admits of further augmentation to an extent the limits of which are not indicated by any evidence we have been able to obtain.

2. Beam-trawling in the open sea is not a wastefully destructive mode of fishing, but is one of the most copious and regular sources of supply of eminently wholesome and nutritious food. Any restriction upon this mode of fishing would be equivalent to a diminution of the supply of food to the people, while there is no reason to expect present or future benefit from the restrictions.'

The Irish Commissioners concur generally in the opinion of the English Commissioners, that it would be impolitic to inter

fere

fere with the operations of trawlers in deep water; but they intimate doubts as to the policy of allowing that mode of fishing in shallow bays and estuaries, as tending to the destruction in large quantities of young and immature fish.

The results of the recent inquiry coincide generally with those arrived at by the one instituted in 1849, when the Commissioners in the conclusion of their very able report said:

In questions of this and a similar nature connected with the fisheries, where the array of facts upon which to found just conclusions is very limited, or little known, and consequently ample scope is afforded for conjecture and imagination, we find a proportional diversity of opinion, and a degree of heat and determination, so that it is very difficult for a body acting impartially on general principles to preserve consistency and resist the impetuous claims of contending parties in different localities. But we have been supported in the course we have adopted, apart from the natural history portion of the question, by a consideration of the vast extent and illimitable supply of the ocean, and by the experience attained in all fishing communities for a number of years at the same time, that there is a total absence of proof of a reduction of fish taken, but, on the contrary, evidence of its positive increase in proportion as these destructive modes of capture are more used.'

A fact strongly corroborative of the soundness of the conclusion arrived at by the Commissioners of the late and former inquiries on the subject of beam-trawling appears in the recent Report of the Commissioners for the British Fisheries. It is stated that on a well-known Scotch fishing bank called the Traith, a regulation prohibiting trawling with beam trawl-nets for white fish has been imposed, and maintained, as an experiment, for three years, but at the end of that period it was rescinded, and that, as far as could be ascertained, the rescinding of the regulation had not been productive of any bad consequences whatever.*

Few gastronomic privations would probably be more felt than a permanent falling off in the supply of oysters. The finest Dogger Bank cod would be held in little esteem if sent to table without its traditionary sauce. We learn, however, from the Commissioners' Reports that the quantity of oysters adapted to the London market has very much diminished during the last four years; a diminution which is said to have arisen not from overfishing, but from the very general failure of the spat or spawn, which appears to have perished almost as soon as it was produced. The oyster fisheries in the bays and shallow estuaries

of our coasts are represented as in a state of great depression, the oysters having in many places entirely disappeared. In the estuary of the Thames the greatest scarcity has prevailed, and the price of the native' has more than trebled. The number of oysters required for the annual consumption of London alone is estimated at 800,000,000, but the fecundity of this popular mollusc is one of the marvels of natural history. Every spawning oyster, it has been calculated, produces not less than 800,000

young in a season. An eminent French pisciculturist compares

the appearance of the myriads of animalcula which escape from the adults on the breeding banks to a dense mist, but all these oysters in embryo must meet with substances to which to attach themselves, for if they fail in this they are inevitably destroyed by the multitudes of crustaceans which feed upon them.

ness.

Oyster-culture has of late become a very considerable busiThere are now 7000 water farms' in France established for their propagation. There are valuable oyster-beds in England on the Kent and Essex and Hampshire coasts, in the estuary of the Thames, on the west coast of England, in the Solent and in Portland Bay, Falmouth Harbour, Milford Haven, and Swansea and Caernarvon bays. Nine years ago the deep channel beds were discovered, and they have produced very large returns, and afford regular employment for three hundred vessels each of about twenty-five tons burden. The oysters are found in that portion of the channel which extends from Dunkirk to Cherbourg, but they are large and coarse, improving, however, on being laid down in shallow water. They are in considerable demand at fairs and races. Of the private oyster-fisheries the most important is the well-known one of Whitstable, twentyseven square miles in extent, and the stock of which is valued at 400,0007. Oyster-culture is becoming a business of much importance, and many beds which have been recently laid down promise under improved management a large increase of our supplies. On the coast of Ireland, the area now under cultivation under licenses comprises 10,000 acres.

It is gratifying to learn from the Report of the Irish Commissioners that a great improvement has taken place in the sea-fisheries of that country compared with their condition a few years ago. On the eastern coast the catches of herrings have been satisfactory, and new companies are being formed for the vigorous prosecution of that fishery. On the south coast a mackerel fishery has sprung up, and is prosecuted with success. Ireland, however, labours under one disadvantage in respect to its fisheries, especially those on the western coast, from which England and Scotland are comparatively exempt. The climate

is one of the most stormy in the world, and the sea is almost always in a state of violent commotion. The want of markets, too, has operated as a great discouragement to a pursuit which was miserably remunerated. When the price which the poor and hardworking fisherman often obtained for his night's labour is taken into account, the apathy imputed to him was almost excusable. We have heard of fine haddocks having been offered in vain in an Irish town for sixpence a dozen, and of four men, who had caught forty large turbots, rowing sixteen miles to the nearest market, where they obtained for the whole only 25s. The Irish coast affords a remarkable illustration of the capricious habits of fish, for which no satisfactory cause can be assigned. The haddock and the whiting, which for a long time had scarcely been seen on the western and northern shores, have suddenly reappeared, and are again taken in considerable quantities. The increasing facilities for the transport of fish in Ireland to the inland towns by railways are effecting a gradual change in the prospects of the fisheries, which will doubtless before long rank far higher than they have hitherto done among the valuable resources of the country. There is a kind of shark often found off the west coast of Ireland which is perfectly innocuous, and which might, if its capture were systematically pursued, become a source of considerable profit. The squalus maximus, or, as it is sometimes called, the sun-fish, has been caught of the length of thirty-six feet, and two tons of oil, as valuable as that of the sperm whale, have been taken from its liver. The sun-fish is captured by harpooning when floating lazily upon the water, where it often remains motionless for hours. After a long and often dangerous struggle with its assailants, it is brought alongside, turned upon its back, its liver extracted, and the carcase then cut adrift.

The deep sea-fisheries of England are subject to no restrictions whatever, and the Commissioners of the recent inquiry concur in the conclusion arrived at by their predecessors in 1837, that the greatest caution should be exercised in hampering them by legislative interference. The destruction of fish by each other is so enormous that, extensive as are our draughts upon the ocean, their influence upon the aggregate mass of its population is probably altogether inappreciable. There is doubtless a process continually going on by which the amount of fish-life is maintained at a constant quantity. Any unusual multiplication of herrings, for example, supplies food for a larger number of their enemies; and if these increase beyond their assigned proportion the fish which prey upon them soon reduce their numbers; the smaller fish, thus relieved for a time from their