44 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



the tides. This leads us to the j^erhaps unexpected 

 conclusion that tlie millions of fry in any particular 

 bay are most probably the produce of spawn shed in 

 other localities. As these very young fishes increase 

 in size they gradually make their way into deeper 

 water, but apparently remain for some time not very 

 far off. 



The Brixham and Plymouth trawlers^ whose usual 

 fishing grounds are only a few miles from the land, 

 find that the nearer they work inshore the larger is the 

 number of young fish in their nets ; but they always 

 take some ; and tliis is also the case with the North Sea 

 trawlers. It cannot be avoided, for young fish are 

 found everywhere ; but they are probably nowhere so 

 numerous in equal areas as along the shores of sandy 

 bays ; and there unfortunately the most effective means 

 of destroying them can be and are employed. In- 

 calculable numbers, however, after being hatched out 

 at the surface, must certainly find a safe resting place 

 on the ground in deep water, as proved by the immense 

 and continuous catches there of plaice and soles of 

 various sizes ; and the destruction of small fish in the 

 bays by shrimpers and others, however much it is to 

 be regretted, has therefore not the importance which 

 apparently attached to it when the parent fish were 

 supposed generally to select those particular localities 

 for the deposit of their spawn upon the ground. 



The deep-sea trawlers catch a varying number of 

 young fish wherever tliey work, but they are of a 

 larger size generally than those taken in the shoal 

 water of bays such as we have been speaking of. The 

 quantity of entirely useless fish thus cauglit, thrown 

 away, and probably wasted, if not eaten by other fish,- 

 is, however, very much less than is connnonly supposed ; 



