17 



an area of three or four miles from the coast. To corro- 

 borate this opinion, he could speak of their almost total 

 disappearance from the West Bay, and also the disap- 

 pearance of shoals of mackerel off Folkestone, and Kings- 

 down, near Deal ; the population used to live on catching 

 mackerel during the summer months, but within twenty 

 years the constant increase of mackerel boats had broken 

 up the shoals, and, although they were not destroyed, they 

 were so much lessened that it no longer paid to catch the 

 fish. He could also quote an instance of a trout-stream 

 which was depopulated by over-fishing, and the Angling 

 Society were compelled to forbid any fishing for three years. 

 It was a matter of common sense that if too large a propor- 

 tion were caught, although the powers of reproduction might 

 be enormous, still there must be a fatal result. He hoped 

 that at the close of the Exhibition the scientific men 

 connected with it would still prosecute further inquiries 

 into the habits of fish, in order to determine how far regu- 

 lations were required for their protection. 



Mr. Fryer said he certainly did not intend to express 

 the opinion that it was impossible to destroy all fisheries. 

 On the contrary, he had shown over and over again, that it 

 was possible for certain inland and other fisheries to be 

 exhausted. What he wished to state was, that before any 

 hasty steps were taken to prevent the capture of fish, they 

 should be quite certain that those steps were necessary ; and 

 it seemed to him that the case of China afforded an instance 

 which should make them pause before any hasty steps 

 towards legislation were taken. 



Mr. Neumann said it was satisfactory that the Paper 



which had just been read should have called forth such a 



lively discussion. The question raised by Mr. Fryer was 



one which had sprung up at all the Gonferenccs that had 



[40] C 



