4.42 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
whatever scheme of beneficial mesh-restriction can be devised, it 
must be for the flat-fishes* at best only subsidiary to some much 
more far-reaching measure for their protection, 
(v) Artificial propagation. 
This method of restocking the sea may perhaps be said to be one 
of which the theoretical advantages are rather over-balanced by the 
practical difficulties. The public are at last awakening to the fact 
that the possibility of hatching and rearing a trout in a wash-hand 
basin does not imply a similar facility in the case of a sole or 
turbot ; but it may be doubted whether even a thousandth part 
of the difficulties attending the artificial culture of sea fish is gene- 
rally realised, 
There is no doubt that the difficulties are by no means insuperable, 
given the necessary means, but it is, | imagine, entirely impossible 
to rear sea fish without a considerable initial expense in the way of 
rearing ponds. To merely hatch the eggs presents no particular 
difficulties, and involves only an expense which, compared with 
the outlay which would be necessary for rearing operations, 1s com- 
paratively trifling. But the question arises—-What is the good of 
merely hatching the egg and turning the larva adrift to fend for 
itself at its most helpless stage when exposed to countless enemies ? 
If that is all our artificial propagation aims at accomplishing, 
I, for my own part, think we might as well leave the matter to the 
fish themselves, who may be supposed to understand it much better 
than we do. 
There is no doubt whatever in my mind that if we are to accom- 
plish any useful results, we must aim at rearing the young fish 
until it is reasonably well able to take care of itself. In the case 
of flat-fish the fry should be reared at least right through the 
pelagic stages. Granted that the difficulties of our present inex- 
perience are successfully overcome, the prosecution of such operations 
on a scale sufficient to make any appreciable difference in the fish- 
supply would be very considerable, though the cost would not exceed 
that which the profits of the fish trade might reasonably be called 
upon to contribute. 
But there is a further question of the utmost importance. 
Having reared the fry to the required stage, we should naturally 
* Personally I have not studied the possibility of lessening the capture of small flat- 
fish in shrimp trawls by some alteration in the pattern of the net, but I believe that the 
officials of the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee have been experimenting on this 
question with some prospect of success. Their operations are based, as I understand, on 
the fact that a shrimp leaps higher than a flat-fish when the net approaches, and so a 
ground rope which will catch the former will pass over the latter. 
