15 
seine boat, the net being shot some distance at sea and 
brought into land by a tender. There were various kinds of 
seine-nets, all of which did an incalculable amount of harm ; 
he himself having seen large heaps of small fish taken out 
of them and left upon the shore for the next tide to wash 
away. When in France some short time ago, a deputation of 
fishermen waited upon him at Boulogne, and they agreed 
with him as to the destruction of fish upon their coast, and 
informed him that the French Government would not allow 
a seine-net to be used. He asked them if they had any 
stake-nets ; at first they said they had not, but afterwards 
admitted that they had, though they were twenty-seven 
meshes to the yard, and were anchored nets for the capture 
of herrings. He noticed some thousands of pairs of soles 
in Boulogne market which were not four inches long, and 
hundreds of little skate and ray. The French fishermen 
agreed with him that the fisheries were being ruined, but 
they put it down to the small nets used by the shrimp 
boats. From the red shrimp nets which he held in his 
hand, and which were used at Gravesend and that part of 
the coast, it was plain that anything which got into it must 
be destroyed. They could not exactly stop shrimp fishing, 
but still some provision ought to be made as to the distance 
at which the shrimp boats should work from the bays and 
headlands, and there should be a specified mesh of net 
which they should use. What they had to look to was the 
food of the masses, and as it was clear that a large amount 
of fish was destroyed by this class of fishing, it was evident 
that the shrimp-fishing was a subject which required to be 
investigated. The fishermen in France to whom he had 
referred said that they would write to the Minister of 
Marine in order to induce him to enter into a convention 
with the British Government to put a prohibition upon the 
