OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 437 
also the species which is perhaps most in need of this form of 
protection. It would be possible, perhaps, to obtain an inter- 
national consent to the closure of the Terschelling sole ground for 
a month during the spawning period, and such a limited area could 
be watched without great difficulty. The landing and sale of soles 
might be prohibited at North Sea ports and at the London markets 
during the same period, since I do not know that soles are to be 
got anywhere else in the North Sea at that time of the year. 
This would probably have the effect of checking the Dutch sole 
fishery, as the market for its products is to a great extent in 
England, and thus the species would benefit on other grounds 
besides that specially intended. 
I am not prepared to speak very strongly in favour of this 
proposition, and merely put it forward as the only form of close 
season which seems in any way practicable in the North Sea. 
(iv) Restriction of mesh. 
Legislation based on the size or pattern of mesh or on the 
nature of the fishing engine to be employed commends itself, 
perhaps, rather to the amateur than to any one who has had much 
experience of fishing operations. 
The great difficulty with regard to the mesh is found in the fact 
that fish of different kinds exhibit widely different characters of 
conformation as well as of size, so that it is actually impossible to 
devise a size or pattern of mesh which shall be equally suitable to 
all sizes and patterns of fish. Moreover, apart from their differ- 
ence in conformation, some kinds of fish are very much more agile 
than others, and the comparative agility of the different component 
items of the catch has to be taken into consideration no less than 
their proportions. 
Without wearying the reader with details of breadth in propor- 
tion to length, &c., the applicability of the above remarks may be 
sufficiently illustrated by a comparison of two such well-known 
forms as the sole and the plaice. Every one interested in such 
questions should know that a sole reaches maturity at a width 
which, in the plaice, is associated, not only with complete imma- 
turity, but with a market value so low as to be hardly estimable. 
Further, any one who has had any experience of trawling, or has 
even had the opportunity of examining a sole in the living con- 
dition, 1s well aware that this fish 1s infinitely more active and 
sinuous than the plaice, and can, and will, escape from the net if 
there is any possible means of doing so. A plaice, on the other 
hand, may be caught in a net, the meshes of which, to the 
uninitiated observer, seem to offer every facility for its escape. 
