7 
fisheries or their complete exhaustion is not referred to in 
its absolute sense, but only in the sense of their use for 
mankind, and from this point of view let us demonstrate 
the most practical point, viz., that in which fish are compelled 
to abandon places which are within the reach of fishermen. 
It is not the opinion of Spanish fishermen exclusively 
that the sea fisheries are inexhaustible, but it is an idea 
that gains general credence; they know the fabulous 
reproductive power of fishes, they contemplate the huge 
expanse the fish live in, which they suppose to be full of 
the species they try to catch; they compare these spaces 
and their enormous population with those actually taken, 
and the distance run, then, without troubling their heads 
further on the matter, jump to the firm conviction that 
fisheries are inexhaustible. They let down their nets into’ 
the sea eager to gather in the fruits of their precarious 
calling, only to draw them up empty, try a second and 
third time with the same result, and then return home to 
think on the bad issue of their day’s toil; and when this is 
repeated day after day they attribute it all to the variation 
of currents, to atmospheric influences, to the noise of 
artillery on vessels and on shore, to the transit of steam 
ships through the fishing grounds, to epidemics among the 
fish, to caprices of fortune, to witchcraft, and, in fine, to 
anything and everything, rather than the destruction 
caused by an overworking of the fisheries. 
Sometimes a more thoughtful individual attributes this to 
the method of working the fishing tackle, he notices that 
the drag nets in sweeping the bottom bring to the surface 
rooted up vegetation which serves as pasture for one species, 
as shelter for another, and as a nursery for the young of 
others, and also observes that among the entangled herbage 
are myriads of germs and young fry macerated by the 
