210 FISH CULTURE. 



ten or a dozen to forty or fifty of the fry of soles, 

 turbot, plaice, or flounders, of from an inch and a half 

 to two inches in length. There would be, perhaps, a 

 score of these nets at work within sight at the same 

 time, and at the lowest computation they would be 

 emptied two score of times a clay. Some of them 

 gather their shrimps while standing in the water, and 

 allow the rubbish and fry to fall back into it ; but 

 many more empty their nets on the shore, and cast 

 the fry on the beach. 



It is not easy to compute the mischief which 

 even these fishers in a small way do. But the 

 small-meshed trawl-nets are wholesale destroyers, 

 and should not be allowed to be worked under a set 

 depth of water ; as they cannot save the fry, which 

 are smothered in the mass of weed which the net 

 collects, while the good fish they take are incon- 

 siderable, and the prawns, for which they are chiefly 

 worked, can be taken in the pots constructed for the 

 purpose, and which do no mischief. 1 The remedy 



1 I will instance further one case which has lately come under 

 my notice. On the coast of Suffolk, about the town of Aldeburgh, 

 there were formerly large quantities of codling, whiting, flounders, 

 and many other fish. These were so abundant, that it was only 

 necessary to cast a line into the sea from off the beach, when a good 

 take of these and other fish could be made ; while a long line, with 

 a hunched or two of hooks, set at some distance from the shore, 



