n6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



like herrings in a barrel, thousands arid thousands of them, one on top 

 of the other, a solid mass of living and sleeping solehood, only waiting 

 for the adventurous fisherman to pull them up and take them to mar- 

 ket. Man, treacherous man, crept upon their peaceful slumber una- 

 wares, and proceeded, like Macbeth, to murder sleep wholesale in the 

 most unjustifiable and relentless manner. He dropped his lines into 

 the Silver Pits the water there is too deep for dredging and hauled 

 up the hapless drowsy creatures literally by the thousand till he had 

 half exhausted the accumulated progeny of ages. The Silver Pits are 

 still excellent winter fishing-grounds, but never again will they yield 

 such immense fortunes as they did at the moment of their first ex- 

 ploration. 



In 1848, when the California gold-fever was at its very height, 

 some other lucky smack-owners hit upon a second deposit of solid 

 soles, lying in layers on a small tract of coarse bottom near Flambor- 

 ough Head, where they retired to hibernate, perhaps, in consequence 

 of the hard treatment they had received in the Silver Pits. This new 

 El Dorado of the fishing industry was appropriately nicknamed Cali- 

 fornia, because it proved for the time being a very mine of gold to its 

 fortunate discoverers. But, like the prototypal California on the Pa- 

 cific coast, its natural wealth was soon exhausted ; and, though it still 

 yields a fair proportion of fish, its golden days are now fairly over. 



Driven from the banks and pits by their incessant enemy, the 

 trawler, the poor soles have now taken to depositing their spawn on 

 the rough, rocky ground where the fishermen dare not follow them for 

 fear of breaking their nets against the jagged ledges. These rocky 

 spots are known as sanctuaries, and if it were not for them it is highly 

 probable that sole au gratin would soon become an extinct animal on 

 our London dinner-tables. Even to the sanctuaries, however, they are 

 rudely followed, as Professor Huxley has shown, by their hereditary 

 fishy foes, who eat the spawn, and so deprive the world of myriads 

 upon myriads of unborn soles, consigned before their time to dull ob- 

 livion. Formerly, fishermen used to throw away these useless fish 

 when caught ; in future, they have strict orders from the inspectors 

 of fisheries to kill them all wherever found. 



However, even the remnant left by all enemies put together is 

 quite sufficient to repeople the waters with a pleuronectid population 

 with extraordinary rapidity. The fecundity of fish is indeed some- 

 thing almost incredible. The eggs of soles are extremely small 

 not so big as a grain of mustard-seed and the roe of a one-pound 

 fish usually contains as many as one hundred and thirty-four thou- 

 sand of them. Turbot are even more surprisingly prolific : Frank 

 Buckland was acquainted with one whose roe weighed five pounds 

 nine ounces, and contained no less than fourteen million and odd 

 eggs. It is a sad reflection that not more than one of these, on an 

 average, ever lives to reach maturity. For if only two survived in 



