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believe did half the mischief that was supposed. Trawlers 
generally avoided spawning ground when they knew it. 
One of the greatest places for spawning was the estuary 
of the Thames. MHerrings spawned about November. He 
had been hauling seven lasts of herrings in the Downs at 
one haul in twenty-five nets, and the remainder had broken 
away with the fish and were lost. Those fish were all in 
a spawning state. He had known them in that state all 
the winter afterwards, and they were rolled up in great 
quantities along the beach after heavy winds. His belief 
was that these fish went from one place to another until 
they found a favourable place for spawning. Sprats and 
whiting spawned in the months of April and May, and on 
a fine day you could sit upon the beach from Gravesend 
round to Dungeness and find them in incredible numbers. 
He had no doubt the warmth of the water round the shore 
at that season of the year attracted them ; and he also 
believed that shell-fish who spawned before that time 
afforded them food. Afterwards, when the oyster began 
to eject its spawn, the mackerel played great havoc with 
it, but they would also take small fish, sprats, or anything 
that came to hand that was not quite as large as them- 
selves. The mackerel was said to come from the westward. 
But what brought them? He believed they followed the 
water of a certain temperature up the channel, and as they 
came up they selected those places where they could find 
food. All shell-fish spawn came to the surface when first 
ejected, and as it gained weight it sank to the bottom. It 
was useless for one fisherman to use a trawl with a large 
mesh unless all did the same ; but he believed they had a 
ereat deal in their own hands, and he thought it would be 
a good thing if such people as the heads of the Exhibition, 
or his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who had a 
