FISHING STATIONS— ENGLAND. 240 



protecting the young fisli, this experiment can liardly 

 be considered a fair one, however ; for it may reason- 

 ably be said that miicli benefit could not be expected 

 from regulations at Cromer when indiscriminate fishing 

 was carried on at Sherringham and other neighbouring 

 villages ; and this ap^^ears to have been the case. 



The fisheries in the Wash are of several kinds, but, 

 except in the case of mussels and shrimps, they are not 

 very important. Jurisdiction is claimed by the corpora- 

 tions of Lynn and Boston over the fisheries carried on 

 respectively on the Lynn and Boston Deeps ; but, as 

 the power of enforcing penalties for disobedience is 

 questionable, the fishermen practically are left to their 

 own devices. Stow-nets are used here in winter for the 

 capture of sprats, and there is some fishing carried on 

 at tlie same time for a small variety of the common 

 herring, which appears in December and spawns in 

 February or March. Before it was known that a 

 winter spawning of the herring took place on many 

 parts of our coasts, the fact of some of these fish 

 regularly appearing about December near the Thames, 

 having some little peculiarities in shape and size, and 

 being ready to spawn in February, led Yarrell to 

 consider them as specifically distinct from the ordinary 

 kind ; and he described the fish under the name of Clupea 

 Leachii, or Leach's herring. He was further led to 

 believe in its distinctness by finding the number of 

 vertebrae apparently less than in the common herring. 

 There is some doubt, however, whether this variation 

 exists ; and a more extensive examination of the sup- 

 posed new species has resulted in ranking it as only 

 one of the numerous races of the common herring. It 

 is this 'particular variety which is found in the Wash 

 during winter. Shrimping is carried on with the 



