48 
him with £120 to £130 worth of fishing-nets, which were 
hung up in the South Kensington Museum, where they 
had gradually rotted away, but the lines remained. Mr. 
Buckland was much struck with the idea that the small 
mesh of the trawls must destroy large quantities of 
fish, and he said he hoped visitors would examine the - 
nets with particular attention, as it would show the 
necessity for legislation on the subject. Not only was 
there no room for the young fry to escape, but they all 
got jammed in a semi-solid mass at the lower end, and 
of course were destroyed. The most practical idea he had 
seen was a large square mesh two inches from knot to 
knot. When the quantity of seaweed and pebbles which 
got collected in the end was taken into consideration, 
he thought there was not much chance of any sole es- 
caping; but if a few small fish did escape so much 
the better. There had been times when smaller meshes 
had been used for driving. He could remember the 
time when the Dutchmen used nothing smaller than 
274 meshes to the yard; they then got to 30, and the 
same thing had happened with herring-nets. <A drift- 
net had the advantage that it would not kill fish which 
it was not intended to catch ; if there were large fish in 
the water they would not mesh, nor would the small, they 
escaped, and were caught another day. He believed one of 
the most feasible ways of dealing with this matter, would be 
to enact that the whole of the foreshore within three miles 
should be preserved for trawling, thereby the spawning 
beds would not be disturbed, and the smaller fish would 
also be left at rest; the small mesh should also be done 
away with, except on particular grounds where it was used 
for sprats, whitebait, and fish of that description, and, as 
much as possible, gill-nets should be adopted within three 
