DEEP-SEA FISHINa. 



INTEODUCTOEY. 



Fisheries a subject of interest and importance to this country — Fishermen 

 commonly unacquainted with many of the habits of fish — Improvement 

 in the appliances for fishing — Fisheries not a nursery for the Navy — 

 Condition of the fisheries — Supply of fish to the markets — Impossibility 

 of estimating it — Effect of the extension of railways and the use of ice on 

 the development of the fisheries — Great increase of trawlers — Immense 

 demand for fish — Prices — The fish trade — Salesmen and fishmongers 

 — Registration and classification of boats imperfect — Alleged scarcity of 

 fish inshore — Supposed spawning habits of sea fish — Important discoveries 

 by M. Sars — Floating spawn — Fish do not necessarily approach the land 

 for the purpose of spawning — Destruction of small fish in bays probably 

 of slight importance — Close-time unnecessary — Extent of ground trawled 

 on and of ground undisturbed — General prospects of the sea fisheries. 



If it were our desire to enter into the history of the 

 rise and progress of the British Sea Fisheries, we 

 should soon meet with a difficulty in the scarcity of 

 trustworthy materials for the work, especially in all 

 matters relating to the methods by which they were 

 carried on ; for even in the case of the great herring 

 fisheries on particular coasts, local records of which go 

 back for many centuries, there is very little information 

 to be gathered except about charters and bounties^ and 

 regulations for the buying, selling, and curing of the 

 fish. Of the practical part of the fisheries in general, 

 the description of nets and lines in use, and, with rare 

 exceptions, the kinds of fish taken, history tells us little 

 or nothing, and we are compelled to fall back on tlie 

 memory of old fishermen and the traditions which may 



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