NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 105 
way, but the nets are not very often used. On the only occasion, in 
February, when I saw one worked, the only thing in the catch worth 
having was a smelt. As the nets are preferably hauled when the 
tide is rising no injury is done to the fish which are not saleable. 
III, Remepiat Measores. 
Whatever success may attend the enforcement of a size-limit for 
flat-fish, there can be no doubt that this remedy will not be efficacious 
in the case of all round-fish, since (1) there is no area (such as the 
eastern grounds for small plaice and turbot) exclusively, or almost 
exclusively, inhabited by immature members; and (2) round-fish are 
liable to absolute destruction by the mere fact of being caught in the 
big beam-trawl as at present worked. 
I have shown elsewhere that the shrimp-trawl worked in short 
hauls in shallow water is not in this district (and need not be, I 
suppose, in any district) particularly imjurious to the small round- 
fish which frequent the areas where such engines are used, but the 
case in the deep sea is very different. 
The approach of the trawl to the surface, even in such very 
moderate depths as 20 to 30 fathoms, is always marked by the 
appearance of a number of haddock, which float up with distended 
air-bladder through the mouth of the net or larger meshes of the 
‘square,’ and drift helplessly about, a prey to the sea-gulls. When 
the net is boarded, a number of the smaller haddock are found 
meshed by the gills and perfectly dead, and very few are particularly 
lively. JI have made efforts to keep those which appeared the 
healthiest alive in a tub of water, frequently changed, but never 
with success. I have, however, known a haddock, caught in the 
deep sea, to be brought into the Cleethorpes aquarium alive, but it 
died very soon. ‘The skin is very delicate and easily inflamed, but 
I think the pressure of the weight in the trawl is more fatal, since 
line-caught haddock, which must get more or less handled, live well 
enough in the ship’s well. Liners find it necessary, unless the fish 
are from very shallow water, to let the air out of the bladder if they 
wish the fish to live; and this they do, as also with cod, by a prick 
with a needle above the pectoral fin, care being taken to avoid the 
liver. Cod treated in this way live for months in the floating boxes 
in Grimsby Docks, and I suppose haddock would as well. I am told 
that even ling, in which the stomach has been everted by the 
pressure of the air-bladder, can be kept alive by the same means, 
though in this case the puncture is usually made above the anus. 
Now this process is well enough for the liner, who finds it tend, 
moreover, to his immediate profit, but I do not think it is feasible to 
