THE DIPOVERISHMENT OF THE SEA. 5 



same reasoning apply to the sea fisheries ? Are there any sea fisheries 

 which are exhaustible ? He replies, " I believe that it may be affirmed 

 with confidence that, *iii rchdion to our jJ^'csent modes of fishing, a 

 number of the most important sea fisheries, such as the cod fishery, 

 the herring fishery, and the mackerel fishery, are inexhaustible. And 

 I base this conviction on two grounds — first, that the multitude of 

 these fishes is so inconceivably great that the number we catch is 

 relatively insignificant; and, secondly, that the magnitude of the de- 

 structive agencies at work upon them is so prodigious that the destruc- 

 tion effected by the fisherman cannot sensibly increase the death-rate " 

 (International Fishery Exhibition, London, 1883, Inaugural Meeting of 

 the Congress, Eeport, p. 14). 



It is clear from this passage and the context that Professor Huxley 

 limits his conviction as to the inexhaustibility of sea fisheries to the 

 drift-net fisheries of all kinds, and to the cod fishery as it was then 

 pursued by means of lines and hooks. He expressly excludes the 

 remaining sea fisheries from the category to which his conviction refers, 

 for, after giving illustrations in support of the conviction just quoted, 

 he continues : " There are other sea fisheries, however, of which this 

 cannot be said. . . . Theoretically, at any rate, an oyster-bed can be 

 dredged clean. In practice, of course it ceases to be worth while to 

 dredge long before this limit is reached. . . . Thus I arrive at the con- 

 clusion that oyster fisheries may be exhaustible. . . . I have no doubt 

 that those who take up the suijects of tratvling and of the shell fisheries 

 will discuss the question in relation to those fisheries" (I.e., pp. 16, 18). 



Professor Huxley's views on this important question have been so 

 widely misunderstood that I am glad to have the present opportunity 

 of reiterating his actual statements, and the limits within which he 

 expressly intended them to apply. If I may go a step further than 

 Professor Huxley's words authorise as forming part of his personal 

 opinions, it will be to point out that far the most valuable, and formerly 

 the most abundant item in the produce of the trawl fisheries, is the 

 catch of flat fishes ; and that, from their relatively sedentary habits of 

 life, their permanent location on the sea-bottom in more or less shallow 

 water, and the methods adopted for their capture, these fishes more 

 nearly approximate to the oyster, as regards the conditions of their ex- 

 haustibility, than to the mackerel, herring, or even the cod-fish tribes.f 



I have, moreover, no hesitation in affirming that, as regards the 

 relative influence of the various destructive agencies upon the death- 

 rate of flat fishes, the destruction directly effected by man far ex- 

 ceeds the destruction wrought by other enemies. These are practically 

 limited to gulls and the more rapacious members of their own tribe 



* The italics are mine, f Cf. Eeport of Trawling Commission, 1S85, pp. xxxv., xliii. 



