OUR SEA FISHERIES. 211 



here is plainly to prohibit trawling in shallow 

 water, to place a penalty upon the destruction of fry, 

 to appoint a fence-time, and to empower the coast- 

 guard to enforce it. There is no other method, and 

 the coastguard, as regards smuggling, have now really 

 very little to do which is worth their employment ; 

 whereas in the protecting of our fisheries, and seeing 

 that the proper regulations as regards the machinery, 

 fence-times, &c. be enforced, they would render most 

 valuable assistance, and they are to a small extent 

 already occupied in this matter. The size of all fish 

 which it is permissible to take is laid down in the 

 Act of the 1st of Gfeo. I. ; and under the sizes there 

 laid down, it should not be permissible either to take 

 fish, or to sell them, or have them in possession. 



In looking further into the papers written by 

 Mr. Andrews upon the Irish fisheries, I find a vast 



would well repay the fisherman for his trouble. Visitors came to 

 the spot as a convenient watering-place, and the fishermen in the 

 summertime found that, by using their small trawls for shrimps, 

 they could earn a trifling remuneration with very little trouble. 

 These trawls were accordingly used, in two or three fathoms of 

 water, on the banks where the fish naturally came to spawn ; and the 

 result of the persistence in this species of fishing has been, that the 

 fish have in a great measure been driven from the spot, and line- 

 fishing there is now not worth the trouble of prosecuting. There 

 are many other places along the coast where the same result has 

 ensued from a similar practice. 



p2 



