84 EEPOET OF COMMISSIONEE OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



kets and waters. Ee-enforced by occasional and sporting iishermen, 

 tliey succeeded in creating a prejudice against tlii-^ method of fishing, 

 such as has been arraigned against every labor-saving machine adopted 

 by other industries with the same result, until parties of wealthy young 

 men, seeking relief from ennui or the cares of business, and thoroughly 

 furnished with the most approved tackle, turn flshermenfor a time ; but, 

 disappointed in consequence of not catching fish, are easily persuaded 

 that it is because traps have destroyed them ; then, without taking the 

 trouble to investigate the matter, an effort is made to unite every 

 element of aggrieved (or imagined to be aggrieved) interest against the 

 net-fishermen, with a determination to exterminate their, the only ad- 

 mitted profitable method of fishing. 



By dint of great efforts and one-sided statements by canvassers, they 

 enrolled the names of a long list of petitioners. 



That very many well-meaning persons signed the petition, we doubt 

 not; and that some advocated it from a sense of public good, we be- 

 lieve ; for the fish question, when first brought to issue before the peo- 

 ple of this State, so long as the facts remained obscure, did have some 

 show of fairness to those content to know simply that traps had in- 

 creased and the price of fish increased, wliile the catch of fish with hook 

 and line, in some localities, had decreased. While this constituted the 

 whole bulk of the information made available to the mass of the people, 

 and was enforced and made to appear plausible by the eloquent rheto- 

 ric of scholastic lore — that the first was the cause, the latter the effect — 

 it is not surprising that many were influenced by it. 



But while they are discussing the means of restoring the fish to our 

 waters, the fish themselves re-appear and upset all jwognosticatious of 

 their extinction by human means, and establish the fact that they, like 

 insects, in the lapse of years, fluctuate in imuibers, though left to them- 

 selves. First, one species, favored by certain conditions, multiply and 

 increase to a number limited only by the amount of food produced, and 

 the ordinary vicissitudes of fish life, until some deadl}^ distemper, a con- 

 vulsion of nature, the destruction of their normal food, an increase of nat- 

 ural enemies, or the invasion of their grounds by new enemies which take 

 their place and multiply until some of the above-named, or other causes, 

 produce the same effect upon their numbers, and they in turn give place 

 to the former or other species. 



Such changes are constantly going on under the inexorable laws of 

 nature, that produce alike effect upon vegetation, sometimes hj visible, 

 sometimes by invisible causes ; and man can no more change the result 

 by legislation than he can limit the drops of rain that shall fall upon 

 the earth. 



To account for all the causes that produce the effect is much beyond 

 the grasps of finite minds; its roots are deeper than they can penetrate. 

 It is comprehended, in all the relations of cause and effect, only by the 

 All wise Ruler of the universe. 



We can only theorize and speculate about the hidden, unsolved mys- 

 teries of nature, that show man's weakness, and point the limit of his 

 attainments. 



The following communications may serve to illustrate what I have 

 saidr 



