278 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



over this flourishing trade ; to wit, complaints of impaired 

 catch. It is said by some, that the North Sea is showing 

 signs of exhaustion, possibly by over-trawling. 



The latest Fishery Board Reports mention the circum- 

 stance more than once ; and not a fortnight ere this is 

 written, bumboat trawlers from Scheveningen reported 

 that " the sea seemed fished out (doodgevischf)? We have 

 in former chapters seen similar complaints raised at more 

 than one period ; and if they were unfounded then, the case 

 may be different now the number of trawlers of all nations 

 in the North Sea has very much increased. Trawling 

 prohibitions, shrimping restrictions, &c, may possibly with- 

 in a few years become once more the fishery topic of the 

 day. 



Measures of a similar nature, i.e. to prevent the extinc- 

 tion of fish-life, have since years been the preoccupation of 

 Government as regards the Zuider Zee. It has been re- 

 marked in an earlier part of this work, that whatever may 

 be the probabilities of the North Sea being exhausted, the 

 inlet called Zuider Zee, being small and very shallow, 

 is certainly more liable to exhaustion than the wide 

 main ; and we have seen, in former centuries, men of the 

 provinces surrounding this gulf engaged in long-winded 

 disputes, and even in actual contests, to secure the 

 conservation of a stock of fish. As a fact, in the last 

 fifteen years the yield of pan-herring and flat-fish from the 

 Zuider Zee has been declining ;* and complaints of exhaus- 



* Some figures relative to Zuider Zee fishery since 1857 have been 

 collected, into Appendix N. They are anything but complete ; for 

 pan-herring caught in the said water has during this period been 

 brought to several other markets besides Monnickendam, and the 

 fresh-fish returns (plaice, flounder, sole, turbot, eel, &c.) form no part 

 of the table. 



