46 DEEr-SEA FISHING. 



higher penalties than those at present provided would 

 be necessary to ensure such protection as they now 

 properl}^ receive at that season. A close-time is needed 

 for salmon, because their only spawning grounds are 

 high up in the rivers ; and the opportunities and 

 appliances for capturing the fish before they can reach 

 those grounds are so many, that spawning might prac- 

 tically be prevented if no protection were given. It is 

 entirely different in the case of sea fish, even if we 

 suppose the common idea to be correct, that they all 

 spawn in more or less shallow water near the land. It 

 would be idle to imagine that our sea fisheries are now, 

 or are ever likely to be, carried on in such a manner as 

 to catch any large proportion of the fish before they 

 could reach the supposed spawning beds ; it would be 

 equally incredible that it would pay our small inshore 

 trawlers to continue working on these supposed spawn- 

 ing grounds, or, strictly speaking, on some of them — 

 for the alleged destruction of spawning fish and of 

 spawn is by no means general around the coast — so 

 lona: as to catch most of the fish in the locality. No 

 possible extent of fishing, therefore, can prevent a 

 considerable number of fish from freely spawning when 

 the proper season for it arrives. Nor is there the 

 slightest evidence to show that if the spawn were 

 deposited there, it would necessarily be injured by 

 being disturbed. On the contrary, we know by the 

 experiments of Professor Allman and others that, in 

 the case of herring spawn, there is no difficulty in 

 hatching the ova after it has been dredged up and 

 kept under unfavourable conditions in the house. The 

 statements which have before now been confidently 

 made, that the spawn of sea fish is commonly buried 

 in the ground, have no foundation on direct observa- 



