229 
September of every year. As the result of 7 years’ experi- 
mental fishing it was found that 567 young Plaice were 
taken in an average haul with a shrimp trawl on this 
ground in those months. Now during those 3 months 15 
shrimp trawling boats on the average are fishing there 
every day, each boat making 3 hauls per day on five 
days per week, 2,925 hauls in all. Supposing each boat 
to have made the average catch of 567 young Plaice, over | 
one and a half millions of young fishes would have been 
caught on this area alone during the three months men- 
tioned per year. It must be remembered that in the 
fishing as ordinarily practised the great majority of these 
are really destroyed. 
The enormous destruction of young fishes due to this 
method of fishing will be realised when we state that there 
are altogether about 100 boats employed in shrimp trawl- 
ing in the Mersey estuary, and the grounds seaward from 
the river, and that the above calculation applies to only 
15 of these frequenting a particular area for 3 months. 
The Mersey is not the only district in which shrimp trawl- 
ing is practised. Just as active fishing is carried on in the 
Ribble estuary and in Morecambe Bay and in many parts 
of the coast, ‘‘ cart-shanking "—an equally destructive 
form of fishing, is practised. We believe we are under 
the mark in stating that the yearly destruction of young 
Plaice on the Lancashire and Cheshire coasts before the 
closure of the Blackpool ground due to shrimp trawling 
must be measured by the hundred million. 
It is a regrettable circumstance that regulation with 
a view to the protection of the young Plaice on the nursery 
grounds must to some extent interfere with the prosecu- 
tion of shrimp trawling, but it seems probable that the loss 
incurred by the latter fishery would be more than com- 
pensated by an increased number of Plaice on the fishing 
