the outcry against trawlers generally, but the complaint 

 against them is somewhat modified. In some quarters the old 

 belief in their injury to the spawn still survives, with the usual 

 tenacity of life with which all mistaken notions seem to be 

 endowed ; but the charge practically resolves itself into 

 one of destroying, not the spawn or eggs, but the fry or 

 young fish. No trawler will deny that his net does destroy 

 a large quantity of immature fish ; but that admission is by 

 no means a conclusive proof of his guilt. The charge has 

 no significance, unless it means that the destruction of 

 young fish which he occasions has the effect of diminishing 

 the supply of adult fish. It is as easy to deny as to make 

 this charge ; but it is a much more difficult matter to prove 

 either side of the case. If the charge of causing the 

 deterioration of the fisheries embraces the cod, ling and 

 haddock, and other members of the cod family, it may be 

 answered by referring to the vast development of these 

 fisheries, as shown by statistics, in spite of — probably 

 largely in consequence of — the use of the trawl. But if the 

 allegation that the fisheries are decreasing be confined to 

 the fish which are chiefly taken by the trawl, viz. the flat- 

 fish, such as soles, turbot, flounder, plaice, brill, &c., it is less 

 easily disproved, for the reason, first, that we have no 

 such statistics of the quantities of these fish captured as 

 we have in the case of cod and herring ; and, second, 

 that our knowledge of the habits of the pleiiroiiectidce or 

 flat-fish is even more meagre than our acquaintance with 

 the natural history of the gadidcE or cod. The probability 

 is that the flat-fish are no less prolific than other species ; 

 we know, indeed, that one of them, the turbot, is one of 

 the most prolific fish known ; and it is equally probable 

 that the destruction of small flat-fish by trawl-nets bears 

 no greater relation to the depredations among them of 



