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the size and with this the weight of fish landed. The 
author contends that there are already sufficient eggs and 
fry in the seas, and that it is not useful to attempt to add 
more. In this country the view has generally been that 
the decline in the fishery can be remedied by increasing 
the quantity of eggs or fry in the nurseries, either by 
increasing the number of spawning fish by the imposition 
of a minimum size limit or by artificial incubation, or by 
protecting the very young fishes on the nursery grounds. 
In the Irish Sea the nursery is also a shrimping ground, 
and the only means of attaining the latter object is by 
_ interference with the shrimp trawl fishery, for the results 
of experimental shrimp trawling which we have quoted 
above sufficiently demonstrate that enormous destruction 
of Plaice fry necessarily accompanies shrimp trawling in 
most places where it is carried on. Various attempts have 
been made by the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee to 
obtain powers to legislate in this direction, and the area 
known as Blackpool Closed Ground is as yet the only fish- 
ing ground where shrimp trawling is forbidden in the 
interests of the young Plaice and soles which are reared 
there. The amount of destruction of young Plaice which 
was due to shrimp trawling on that area will be seen from 
a consideration of the figures we have quoted above. 
The shrimping ground at the mouth of the river 
Mersey is an area on which shrimp trawling is extensively 
practised,* and where as we have seen great numbers of 
young Plaice unfortunately congregate. | Experimental 
hauls with a shrimp trawl have been made for many years 
by the officers of the committee on a portion of this area, 
which the Committee recently unsuccessfully attempted 
to close against trawling during July, August and 
*See Lanc. Sea Fish. Lab. Report for 1900, p. 39, 1901, for a short 
account of this fishing ground. 
