118 THE STORY OF FISH LIFE. 



It is to this sojoura by the shore that most of 

 us owe our acquaintance with the living plaice, 

 sole and flounder. For it is not the lot of many 

 to " go down to the sea in ships and see the 

 wonders of the deep '' — at least, not the kind of 

 ship that goes wonder-catching. The young fry 

 which make their nursery off our coasts are 

 caught in hundreds in the " long-shore " nets, 

 which are assiduously worked throughout the 

 summer months from favourable spots wherever 

 they occur. Who has not watched, and with 

 something of infection too, the groups of excited, 

 bare-legged, holiday-making youngsters, as they 

 seize upon the poor little wriggling and flopping 

 victims, tossed contemptuously out of the nets as 

 '^ rubbish " by the brawny and thoughtless grey- 

 beards, v/ho earn their daily bread — and not much 

 more — by the continual effort to catch the bigger 

 fish in the sea than they ever succeed in getting 

 out of it 1 What reckless waste ! It is time 

 that some form of instruction, say by means of 

 simple lectures, was instituted to show these 

 same grey-beards — and youngsters too — who 

 do but transgress in ignorance, how tenderly 

 and speedily these young fry should be rescued 

 and restored to the sea : for our food supply is 

 being sorely tapped by the present wasteful 

 fashion of leaving them to die upon the beach. 



As Mr Masterman remarks, in writing of the 

 cod's eggs : " It is evident that, for the successful 

 development of the young fish a concatenation 

 of favourable circumstances is necessary, which 

 depends in the main upon such essentially fickle 

 phenomena as wind and temperature. Let the 



