REFORMS IN THE FISHERIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 297 



avoidable commercial loss. The close confinement of codfish in their fish chests suuk 

 in the fish docks causes a rapid increase in the relative number of bacteria alleged to 

 be always present in the blood of living fish. When the proportion of bacteria 

 exceeds that which the blood of living fish can tolerate, then the fish commence to 

 sicken and will often die, even if well and regularly fed in a fair amount of space, as 

 in fish kept in aquaria. Hence these sunk fish trunks become the rapid carriers of 

 contagious disease to any healthy fish which may chance to be in or near the fish chest. 



In addition to tolerating in health a certain proportion of bacteria, fish are also, 

 up to a certain point, equally tolerant of various external and internal parasites; 

 and generally every fish dissected shows either some parasites, as tapeworms, in its 

 intestines, or other parasites about its gills, eyes, skin, or elsewhere, and even some- 

 times as many as fifteen different species of. parasites have been discovered in one 

 individual fish. Often these parasites, along with the bacteria, increase so as to gain 

 the battle over the fish, especially when the latter becomes weakened by starvation, 

 confinement, injury, or other causes tending to diminish its vitality. Parasites also 

 promote decomposition the moment the fish dies. These sunk fish chests never err 

 on the side of cleanliness, and are hence favored localities for hatching and breeding 

 bacteria and parasites specially destructive to fish health and fish life. The loss of 

 life in codfish caught in the nets will not average upwards of 5 per cent. Hooked 

 fish on being drawn up are liable to disgorge or vomit, not alone the contents of their 

 stomachs, but also, especially in the case of deep-sea and abyssal fishes, to have their 

 stomach and part of their intestines protruded through their mouths. Having air- 

 bladders, deep-sea and abyssal fish by the rapid altered nressure, together with the 

 influence of shock, get their air-bladders so dilated with evolved gases that they are 

 unable to sink from the surface of the water in welled smacks till the fisherman, 

 passing a long needle through the walls of the fish's abdomen, or the pit of the left 

 pectoral fin, by letting the gases escape, allows the fish to resume its natural habits. 

 Hooked salmon vomit through fright alone. Fish may be sometimes seen with a 

 prolapsed and protruded rectum and lower intestine, which appears to be due to 

 relaxed flabby muscles, and is a sign which very shortly precedes the commencement 

 of decomposition. As a rule hooked fish keep longer fresh than netted fish, which, 

 owing to being injured by having been trawled over rough grounds, together with 

 the sharp prolonged squeezing and banging about they get in the nets, are specially 

 liable to early decomposition. 



Much of the so-called best prime "live" codfish at Billingsgate has after capture 

 been transferred into welled smacks which accommodate from about 600 to 1,000 cod- 

 fish, each weighing from 16 to 20 pounds avoirdupois. Especially in rough weather, 

 after having been subjected for a few days to injury, confinement, and starvation in the 

 welled boats, to prevent these fish from eating one another they are sometimes spe- 

 cially secured by their tails. On arriving in port some 40 of these codfish are tightly 

 crammed into a fish chest, sunk in the fish dock (which in England answers oidy dur- 

 ing the cold weather from about November till April), where the codfish, after further 

 confinement and starvation, all die within a few weeks. If the fish be kept for a shorter 

 interval, say, a fortnight, then on an average only about 10 per cent of such codfish 

 are found dead upon opening the raised chest. All such starved, closely confined cod- 

 fish lose much of their natural healthy flavor, firmness, weight, and plumpness. The 

 fish, having to support life, consume much of the substance of their own livers, which 



