REFORMS IN THE FISHERIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 309 



setting aside the just claims of our brave fishermen for such trade information, this 

 would also cheapen fish and thus relieve some of the burdens of tax-payers.* 



Telegraphic communication between the light-houses and light-house ships and 

 the shore is of inestimable value in case of many shipwrecks as well as for sea-fishery 

 observations. 



OVERFISHING BY MAN, BIRDS, AND FISH. 



In 137G Parliament was petitioned to stop, by immediate legislative interference, 

 the increasing damage done by alleged excessive local sea-fishing by British fisher- 

 men. This agitation arose against the further employment of a new engine or instru 

 ment, "conceitedly and cunningly contrived," called a " wondy-choun,'' which was 

 accused of destroying the spawn of fish and the spat of oysters and mussels. Intro- 

 duced about 1309, the " wondy-choun" was probably an English invention of the original 

 beam trawl or trail net for deep-sea fishing. The present successors of these four- 

 teenth century grievance-mongers are well-meaning but ill-informed fish-trade quacks 

 who publicly pose as the promulgators of the so-styled "immature fish questions." 

 They ignore the elements of the natural history of marine fish life; they apparently 

 sanction the eating of whitebait (a generic term for immature fish, chiefly herrings 

 and sprats) ; they raise no objection to the use of lobster eggs (though almost tasteless) 

 in sauces for fish ; they permit the caviare or sturgeon-egg trade and the eating of the 

 roes or eggs of herrings, cod, perch, pike, red mullet, etc. 



Daily fcea birds eat myriads of millions of fish eggs, of fish fry, of baby fish, and of 

 sexually immature fish, besides multitudes of the fattest and finest mature table fish, 

 often filled with ripe roes. At the mouths of salmon rivers sea gulls feast on salmon 

 and sea trout of all ages, from the egg upward. In every twenty-four hours these 

 winged anglers probably do more injury to the sea fisheries than all the united fish- 

 catching engines and instruments of man in a whole century. Such evils are augmented 

 and aggravated by these winged fish-poachers, feeding only upon the best food-fishes 

 and eggs', leaving untouched predatory fish and their eggs, especially those of the dog- 

 fish and shark. An excess of sea birds would first exhaust and exterminate marine 

 food-fishes. These hungry birds would next eat up the predatory fishes aud their eggs 

 and other fishes considered at present too coarse for table or market. Taken in time, 

 man could restore the " balance in nature " by destroying marine birds and their eggs. 

 Sinking only when dying or dead, the living and fertilized eggs of most sea-water 

 fish float about or near the surface. Hence deep-sea trawling can not injure such 

 living floating eggs, but it does injure many aquatic plants at the sea's bottom, on 

 which certain fish feed. 



Marine food-fishes are preyed upon by birds and predatory fishes, including the 

 ever hungry dogfish and shark tribes. Troops of dogfish will encircle and devour 

 shoals of herrings, whiting, haddock, young cod, etc. To protect our marine food- 

 fishes, the extermination of the dogfish and shark species is advisable. The bodies 

 of dogfishes and sharks yield commercial fish-oils. Their skeletons are rich in phos- 



*A fisheries intelligence service, such as is here referred to, has been in operation in the various 

 coast provinces of eastern Canada for several years. It is maintained by the Government at the 

 remarkably low annual expenditure of $2,000. It has proved of much benefit to the boat and vessel 

 fishermen of Canada, and would doubtless be of equally great value to all other countries having 

 important coast fisheries.— Hugh M. Smith. 



