248 DEEP-SEA FISHINa 



and often for a mere trifle. 5000Z. or 6000/. worth of 

 crabs were sometimes taken in a season, and the fisher- 

 men had agreed among themselves that no crab measur- 

 ing less than 4J inches across the shell should be brought 

 on shore under a penalty of one pound. There was also 

 a heavy fine for bringing in a " berry " lobster ; and so 

 convinced were the fisliermen of the necessity for these 

 restrictions that they kept a sharp look-out on one 

 another, and informed against anyone tlie}^ caught 

 offending. 



The protection thus voluntarily given by the fisher- 

 men to the crabs and lobsters was a matter of con- 

 siderable interest to many more persons than the 

 industrious inhabitants of Crom_er; for its principle 

 was that which had been and still is so frequently 

 recommended for adoption to improve the supply from 

 the other sea fisheries, and which is apparently based 

 on the idea that when the young fish in any particular 

 district or locality are left unmolested there must 

 necessarily be a larger sujDply of old ones there in 

 future. Now, however plausible this may appear, it is 

 certainly at present no more than a theory, so far as it 

 can be applied to the inhabitants of the sea ; for we 

 know nothing of what influences their movements, 

 why they should visit or remain on any particular part 

 of the coast, or whether the young fish we spare (as at 

 Cromer) form anything more than the most insig- 

 nificant item compared with the numbers which never 

 come under our eye, or within our reach. However, 

 the regulations we have mentioned have been for many 

 years in force at Cromer, and they are so at the present 

 time; but the result is not very encouraging: recent 

 accounts describe l)otli crab and lobster fisheries as 

 steadily declining. As a test of the advantage of 



