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with a one-inch mesh were prohibited for the capture of 

 herrings, the sprat-fishermen, who used scringe-nets, were 

 threatened with the extinction of their industry, and the 

 herring-fishermen on the west coast of Scotland, who used 

 seine-nets, were in a like plight. A few years later an 

 Act was passed fixing a close time for herring on the 

 west coast of Scotland — an enactment which experience has 

 proved to have been perfectly unnecessary for the protec- 

 tion of the fish. The enforcement of these laws was the 

 cause of grievous hardship among the fishermen, and serious 

 disturbances occurred in consequence. But it was not till 

 1868, after three separate Commissions had inquired care- 

 fully into the matter, that these restrictions were con- 

 demned, and formally abrogated by Act of Parliament. 



Another instance of the dependence of wise legislation 

 upon accurate practical knowledge of the habits of fish 

 may be found in the case of the outcry against trawling. 

 The principal ground of the objections originally urged 

 so loudly against the use of the beam-trawl — that net 

 which, shaped like a long wide-mouthed purse, is dragged 

 along the bottom of the sea, ensnaring the soles, plaice, 

 turbot, and other bottom fish — was that it destroyed the 

 spawn of different species of fish, particularly that of the 

 herring, the cod, the haddock, the whiting, and so on. 

 Now it so happens that the spawn of the herring is 

 deposited at the bottom of the sea, resting there often in 

 enormous masses, resembling very closely, in appearance 

 and consistency, a tapioca pudding. The fishermen jumped 

 to the conclusion that the spawn of every other fish was 

 deposited in the same way, and, as sometimes a trawl 

 would be found to contain small quantities of herring- 

 spawn, the cry was at once raised that the trawlers were 

 denuding the ocean of fish. 



