OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 421 
fisherman would go if he really purposed to get a good bag of either 
shrimps or prawns. 
Great numbers of whiting, mostly very small, and considerable 
numbers of very small cod, are found in all parts of the river worked 
in either shrimp- or prawn-trawling, but none of these are ever 
brought ashore, and only flat-fish of the sizes which I have men- 
tioned reach the market, though many much smaller ones are caught. 
A certain number of lemon soles are taken, but nearly all of them so 
very small as not to be worth keeping. 
Having thus briefly glanced at the captwre of small fish by shrimp- 
trawling, it remains to consider what proportion, apart from the 
comparatively small number landed, are thereby destroyed.* 
I have made it clear, I think, that on the prawning-grounds the 
quantity of flat-fish taken is not of moment, so that prawn-trawling 
may be dismissed as practically innocuous to those kinds of fish. 
The shrimp-ground known as “ Paull Middle,’’? which hes con- 
siderably higher up the river than the rest, does not furnish a very 
significant amount of flat-fish, and on the lower grounds, though a 
considerable number, including very small and delicate forms, are 
taken, the number is nothing like that of which we have evidence 
from the Mersey shrimping-grounds on the North-west Coast. 
In the ordinary course of the Humber industry, when the trawl 
comes on board its contents are shot into a box, or on to the deck, 
and as many as possible of the unsaleable products are picked out 
by hand and pitched overboard. In this way quantities of hard- 
heads (Cottus), bull-routs (Agonus), and gobblers (Liparis) find 
their way back to the water, as also any number of shore-crabs and 
swimmer-crabs. I think it would be wiser to destroy the hard- 
heads, the gobblers, and the swimmer-crabs, as all these seem very 
destructive, and are of no known use. I do not find, from the 
contents of their stomachs, that the bull-routs do much harm ; 
and the shore-crabs, though destructive, deserve some consideration 
on account of their function as scavengers. 
By the same process the young whiting and cod, being of no 
value, are returned to the sea,—to be out of the way, if with no more 
provident intent. ‘The saleable flat-fish are put on one side; the 
remainder, if large enough to attract attention, being thrown over- 
board. Unsaleable soles are most carefully returned, their future 
value being most fully recognised by the shrimpers. 
The catch of prawns or shrimps having thus being roughly 
cleared, is placed in the sieve and riddled over the side of the boat. 
The bottom of the sieve consists of parallel wires, with occasional 
* For a detailed discussion of the Humber shrimp-trawling question vide Journal Mar, 
Biol. Assoc., vol. iii, p. 90. 
