TRAWLING. 91 



water there and the frequent heavy sea make it difficult 

 to trawl successfully on that ground. 



Plaice, another of the fishes caught in countless 

 numbers by the North Sea trawlers, are also generally 

 distributed around our coast, and some of them are 

 usually obtained by the trawl wherever it is worked. 

 They are in great demand among the poorer classes in 

 London and the large manufacturing towns, and make 

 an important contribution towards the supply of cheap 

 and wholesome food. Formerly they were in particular 

 request and fetched a high price from a class of con- 

 sumers in London who now perhaps have little to do 

 with them ; the fish were known as " live plaice " from 

 their being brought alive to the market, and the vessels 

 employed in catching them were welled-smacks, such as 

 are used for the North Sea cod fishery ; but there is 

 now such a large supply of fish of various kinds and in 

 fine condition sent to London that " live-plaiceing," as 

 it is called, has gone very much out of fashion ; and 

 the welled-smacks are used almost entirely for their 

 original purpose of bringing in live cod. A descrip- 

 tion of these vessels will be given in our account of 

 deep-sea line-fishing. 



The deep-sea fishing grounds systematically trawled 

 over are very small compared with the extent of sea 

 bottom which, from its unsuitable character or the 

 depth of water over it, has rarely or never been dis- 

 turbed by a net ; and no stronger argument can be 

 needed to show that the supply of fish has not fallen 

 off than the fact that no trawling ground which in past 

 years was regularly fished and found generally pro- 

 ductive, has yet been abandoned, or even worked on by 

 fewer vessels than formerly. For many years there 

 has been a general and gradual increase in the size and 



