48 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



systematically trawled over in the course of the year. 

 We may here mention, however, that in the North Sea 

 they are of considerable extent, but of much less size 

 in the English Channel ; in both, how^ever, they are 

 small compared with the areas never touched by a 

 trawl — not because there is any reason to believe no 

 fish are to be found there, but in consequence of the 

 depth of water, or the rough or muddy nature of the 

 bottom. 



In the hundreds or, we may say, thousands of square 

 miles of trawling ground in the North Sea, there must 

 be a great deal of the bottom which is very little dis- 

 turbed ; for if fifty large trawlers were to work abreast 

 within a space of two miles, nearly four-fifths of the 

 ground would be untouched by their nets. The harvest 

 the trawlers are continually gathering in is a moving 

 one, and the trawling grounds may be successfully 

 worked over day after day, for there are no means of 

 preventing the fish from coming upon them from other 

 places in the neighbourhood. This is shown in an 

 unmistakable manner in the case of the Brixham and 

 Plymouth groimds ; both of them being of very limited 

 extent, and yet furnishing a supply of fish throughout 

 the year, the number and description varying with the 

 seasons. 



In these introductory observations we have endea- 

 voured to show, by well-ascertained facts, and, we be- 

 lieve, by reasonable deductions from them, that the 

 supply of sea fish has not fallen off, but that, from the 

 additional and regular distribution of it to the markets 

 throughout the country, owing to the facility of trans- 

 port provided by the great system of railways, it must 

 have immensely increased for some years past ; that 

 there is no reason to believe anv of our edible fishes 



