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The Protection of Crabs and Lobsters. 



By 



E. J. Allen, B.Sc. 

 Director of the Plymouth Laboratory. 



"Every legislative restriction means the creation of a new offence. In the case of 

 fishery it means that a simple man of the people, earning a scanty livelihood by hard toil, 

 shall be liable to fine or imprisonment for doing that which he and his fathers before him 

 have, up to that time, been free to do. 



" If the general interest clearly requires that this burden should be put upon the fisher- 

 man — well and good. But if it does not — if, indeed, there is any doubt about the matter 

 — I think that the man who has made the unnecessary law deserves a heavier punishment 

 than the man who breaks it." — Hoxley, Inaugural Address, Fisheries Exhibition, 1883. 



Several of the local Sea Fisheries Committees have recently been, 

 or are still engaged in, considering the question of the advisability of 

 adopting restrictive measures for the protection of crabs and lobsters 

 within their respective districts. To Mr, Gregg Wilson, of the Natural 

 History Department of Edinburgh University, I am indebted for copies 

 of two reports on the subject prepared by him for the Northumberland 

 Sea Fisheries' Committee ; to Mr. W. H. St. Quintin, chairman of the 

 North-Eastern Committee, for a copy of the evidence taken by their 

 sub-committee from fishermen at various centres in the district ; and to 

 the clerk to the Cornwall Sea Fisheries' Committee for a copy of the 

 report of their sub-committee, signed by Mr. E. W. Rashleigh, and a 

 summary of the evidence taken prepared by Mr. liupert Vallentin. 

 The committee of the Eastern District have, I understand, also had the 

 matter under consideration. 



In all cases the suggested restrictions are of two kinds: (1) the 

 establishment of a close-season; and (2), an increase of the present 

 size limit. 



With regard to the first of these proposed remedies, it is hardly 

 necessary to point out, that from a scientific standpoint a close-season 

 for any animal can, in the majority of cases, only be justified, when the 

 breeding season of the animal extends over only a limited portion of 

 the year, and when the close-season can be made to correspond with the 



