THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 189 
continuously. In others, as in the south side of New England, the fish 
come in as the waters at the bottom of the sea assume the temperature 
which they affect. 
So far as the cleaning of fish at sea and the throwing overboard of 
the offal or so-called gurry are concerned, the practice is highly repre- 
hensible in an economical point of view; and as representing an enor- 
mous waste of material capable of being devoted to useful purposes, the 
practice should be frowned down and prevented by legislation if possible. 
On the coast of Norway all such materials, which formerly were 
wasted, are now carefully husbanded and add very greatly to the per- 
centage of the yield of any fishery. Sometimes this material is boiled 
and made to furnish a large amount of oil and scrap. At others the 
heads are assorted and dried as a special food for animals. The actual 
yield of guano alone from the Norwegian fisheries has in a single year 
amounted to 7,700,000 pounds, a very notable element in the productive 
resources of the country. Whether this material be injurious to the 
fisheries or not, its preservation and utilization is too important to be 
neglected ; Se for this, instead of enacting a prohibitory law, which 
could not be enforced, it might be better to offer a bounty or drawback 
of some kind, in proportion to the amount of this material delivered on 
shore. In oe event, even if the fish were more conveniently cleaned 
at sea, the refuse might be saved in barrels and put on shore at a con- 
venient point. If the solid parts were for the most part saved, the 
juices and small particles ow be poured into the sea without any 
detriment. 
In regard to the allegation, however, that this offal or the dead fish 
falling from the hooks, in whatever quantity this may be present, affects 
the fishing-ground, it is extremely difficult to comprehend how this cana 
have any serious effect. In the first place, the cold water in which the 
fishes of the cod family occur abound to an enormous degree with 
marine crustaceans, the self-appointed scavengers of the ocean. These 
are largely a species of Gammarus and allied forms very varying in size 
and in overwhelming and almost incredible numbers, and their efficiency 
in their appointed task is so great that a large fish placed in a box or 
suspended in a bag of netting, will frequently be picked to a most per- 
fect and complete skeleton in from twelve to twenty-four hours; indeed, 
not unfrequently the fish on the trawl-lines are brought up skeletonized 
in this way. 
The same waters in which these shrimps are to be found abound very 
largely in lobsters, which are baited by precisely the same offal which 
is considered so detrimental to the fishing. There are also immense 
schools of small fish such as cunners, and more particularly the 
’ Cyprinodonts, which are as active and prompt in their attacks upon dead 
matter as the crustacea; as witness the experience of those who find a 
large and valued bait cleaned entirely from the hook by these smaller 
fish before it has been down more than a very few minutes. The wolf- 
- fish or catfish (Anarrhichas), the sculpins, the sea-ravens, the goosefish, 
