OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 343 
legislators. I have indicated the various channels through which 
my information and views have already been communicated to the 
public ; and, on closing the inquiries, I have been requested by the 
Council to draw up a brief epitome of the results arrived at, so that 
they may be presented to the public in a concrete form. 
To do this is the object of the present paper, which is designed 
for a section of the public much more extensive than that which is 
in the habit of concerning itself with the literature of professional 
fishery. It is too much to hope that I may be able to invest my 
remarks with any interest not indissolubly connected with the 
subject itself, since facts are at best dry reading, and the habits of 
the scientific writer are not such as to pre-eminently qualify him 
for the hghter graces of popular penmanship. 
A few words are necessary as tothe arrangement of my material. 
The complaints of the trawlers and fish merchants resolved them- 
selves into the following brief statement :—That large numbers of 
immature fish were destroyed by trawling, and that the supply of 
trawl-fish in the North Sea was in consequence diminishing. The 
fish especially referred to were flat-fish, the question of round-fish 
being considered of secondary importance. It was evident that, as 
to the diminution of the supply, I could not hope to obtain any 
absolute evidence of my own. Whatever information was deducible 
from the Board of Trade statistics was open to every one, and those 
statistics hardly went far enough back to be of much value, and 
were, and are, altogether insufficient in detail. I had, therefore, to 
depend, in forming an opinion, entirely on the reminiscences of 
fishermen, eked out in a few cases by the books of smack-owners. 
Any details of information under the last heading I am neither at 
liberty nor in the position to publish, and I must dismiss this 
branch of the inquiry with the assertion, whatever it may be worth, 
that I hold the opinion that there has been a considerable deteriora- 
tion in the supply of the more valuable kinds of flat-fish. In the 
case of haddocks I am not convinced that the deterioration has 
been considerable. Such statistical work as I have carried on since 
I went to Grimsby will be referred to in due course. 
With regard to the alleged destruction of immature fish, the 
first point to ascertain was the correct definition of the term im- 
mature ; and then to find out where, and to what extent, the alleged 
destruction took place. ‘This involved an examination of the dif- 
ferent grounds, with the collection of all possible information as to 
their previous history. 
Inseparably related to the whole question is the condition of the 
