THE CONGER EEL 183 



ceasing to feed in the sea six months or more before spawning ? 

 Surely Mr. Cunningham will admit — indeed, he has been 

 careful more than once to emphasise the importance of the 

 fact in illustrating other arguments — that our fisheries, both 

 line and trawl, operate over a comparatively small area of 

 our seas, and there are large regions of the sea-bed in both 

 the Atlantic and Mediterranean, particularly in its deepest 

 parts, to which congers could comfortably retire and continue 

 feeding as usual, without the trawl or long-line ever bringing 

 them to our notice when in that condition. May it not be 

 that their death before spawning ensued in the Plymouth 

 tanks owing to the lack of such spots to which they could 

 retire for the purpose } 



