108 THE SEA-FISHERIES [PART I 



restricted to the home waters and we do not find them fishing outside 

 the North and Irish Seas and the Channel. Plaice, whiting, dabs, 

 skate and ray form the bulk of the fish caught by them. At one 

 time prime fish, that is soles, turbot and brill, were the fish sought 

 for both by steamers and smacks, and most other kinds of fish 

 were regarded as "ofial." Although it is still considered a very 

 desirable thing to catch large quantities of prime fish they have 

 not the relative importance in the hauls of the fishing boats that 

 they used to have. The demand for fish food has greatly increased 

 since the days when haddock were regarded as offal, and the fish- 

 ing vessels are now obliged to bring in to the markets fishes which 

 formerly they rejected, such as angler fishes (Lophius), dogfishes 

 and catfishes. Prime fish are mostly caught in the North Sea, 

 the Irish Sea and the Channel (though notable quantities have 

 been taken on the newer fishing grounds) and they form a 

 relatively more important proportion of the catches of the smacks 

 than of the steam vessels. 



The half-decked boats are more concerned with catching shrimps 

 and prawns than the fishes, though considerable quantities of the 

 latter are often caught b}- them. These little boats are very 

 versatile in their choice of employment, and shrimping, prawning, 

 fish-trawling, lining, mackerel fishing, drifting, racing and pleasure 

 sailing all are practised by them in their season. Nothing comes 

 amiss to them. The shrimp trawl and the fish trawl are inter- 

 changeable according to the circumstances of the moment. 

 Prawning (for Pandalus, the " pink shrimp ") is rather a specialised 

 form of fishing and is carried on more or less constantly by a 

 number of half-decked boats in some localities, near Fleetwood for 

 instance. The catches of the prawn and shrimp boats are often of 

 much interest to the naturalist, for the restricted size of the mesh, 

 and the employment of the net in what is perhaps the most 

 densely populated part of the sea, give a catch which usually con- 

 tains many organisms of interest. To the naturalist the hauling 

 of one of these nets is always an operation of an instructive kind. 

 Hosts of the smaller immature fishes such as dabs, plaice, soles, 

 whiting, codling, and other gadoid and flat fishes are caught in 

 numbers which depend on the locality, the season and the weather. 

 Small inedible fishes such as sting fish, dragonets, solenettes, sand- 



