136 MARVELS OF FISH LIFE 



small soles, plaice, dabs, whiting and cod are destroyed 

 round our shores in the shrimp trawls. Cunningham 

 gives the result of one and a half hour's haul with a 

 twenty-one foot beam trawl outside the mouth of the 

 Mersey, and during the capture of thirty-two quarts of 

 shrimps, no fewer than 10,407 plaice, 375 dabs, 169 

 whiting, 69 codling, and 12 soles were also taken. All 

 these fish were small in size, and 7,000 of the plaice 

 were so small as to pass through the meshes of a shrimp 

 riddle. 



The injury to immature fish occurs when the 

 cod-end of the trawl is hoisted out of the water ; 

 for then the fish are packed together in a solid 

 mass, and those at the bottom are crushed beyond 

 recovery by the enormous weight of fish above 

 them. 



The remedy for this depletion of fish around our 

 shores lies in sound international legislation, which will 

 protect immature fish, and at certain seasons their 

 spawning grounds. 



The " man in the street " seldom gives a thought 

 to the marine biologist, or if he does, in many instances, 

 he merely thinks of him as a scientist who catches and 

 examines queer creatures in the sea for a purpose 

 which he cannot understand. But the whole question 

 of harvesting our food supply from the sea depends 

 upon the knowledge gained by the marine biologist 

 concerning the life histories, migrations, food, rate of 

 growth and spawning grounds of our food fishes. 



