144 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



all fisb were iniftiatorv, and the reason usually assigned for unsuccessful 

 fishing' was that the fish had removed to some other i)lace. Thus the 

 fact of a particular colony havings been fished up was in some degree 

 hidden, chiefly from ignorance of tlie habits of the animal. This migra- 

 tory instinct, so far as our principal sea-fish are concerned, is purely 

 mythical. The rediscovel"y of the llockall cod-bank must tend to dissi- 

 pate these old-fashioued suppositions of our naturalists. All fish are 

 local, from the salmon to the sprat, and each kind has its own abiding- 

 place. The salmon keeps unfailingly to its own stream ; the oyster to 

 its own bank ; the lobster to its particular rock ; and the herring to its 

 own bay. Fisliermen are beginning now to understand this, aiul can 

 tell the locality to which a particular fish belongs, from the marks upon 

 it. A Tay salmon differs from a Tweed one, and Norway lobsters can be 

 readily distinguished from those brought from The Orkneys. Then, again, 

 the tine haddocks caught in the bay of Dublin differ much from those 

 taken in the Frith of Forth, while Lochfyne herrings and Caithness her- 

 rings have each distinct peculiarities. 



Our great farm, the sea, is free to all — too free; there is no seed or 

 manure to provide, and no rent to pay. Every adventurer who can pro- 

 cure a boat may go out and spoliate the shoals ; he has no care for the 

 growth or preservation of animals which he has been taught to think 

 inexhaustible. In one sense it is of no consequence to a fisherman that he 

 catches codlings instead of cod ; whatever size his fish nuiy be, they yield 

 him what he fishes for — money. What if all the herrings he captures 

 be crowded with spawn? What if they be virgin fish, that have never 

 added a quota to the general stock f That is all as nothing to the fish- 

 erman as long as they bring him money. It is the same in all fisheries. 

 Our free, unregulatecl fisheries are, in my humble o])iiiion, a thorough 

 mistake. If a fi^;herman, say with a capital of £.")()() in boats, nets, &c., 

 had invested the same amount of money in a breeding-farm, how would 

 he act? Would he not earn his living and increase his capital by allow- 

 ing his animals to breed ? and he would certainly never cut down oats 

 or wheat in a green state. 



EXTRACT FROM THE LONDON FIELD, 1871. 



The Americans, like ourselves, have begun to find that fisheries will 

 die out if the fish are liindered from spawning, and are taken at all times 

 and of all sizes. Incited thereto, perhaps, by our example, and by the 

 movement which has taken place in Canada in respect to the fisheries, 

 the Americans have begun to look rather sharply into the condition of 

 their own rivers. We have received various re[)orts from the United 

 States of the proceedings which have been and are being taken in ref-' 

 erence to their fisheries. Last ye-AV an inquiry was held- respecting 

 those of Massachusetts, at the instance of certain petitioners; but the 

 inquiry failed, as it was stated by the committee that there was no 

 sufficient cause shown for enacting any special measures. When a fail- 

 ure of this kind happens with us, we generally know on whose shoulders 

 to put it ; the opposition has been too strong, and the perpetrators of 

 the mischief, whatever it may be, have made sufficient interest to keep 

 things in statu quo. We do not say that this is the case over in Massa- 

 chusetts. Fortunately, however, the example set by that State has not 

 been followed, for Connecticut has come to a different conclusion, and 



