THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 117 



there is every reason to believe that, like other vertebrate animals, after 

 a number of years of service in this respect, the fish, whether male or 

 female, becomes sterile. Sometimes this is the result of sickness or dis- 

 ease ; at others the fish is in its best condition for food. A codfish of 

 20 or 30 pounds is probably as efficient for reproduction as one of 50 

 pounds, and perhaps more likely to furnish a healthy progeny, able to 

 meet the exposures of the sea. 



(7) The long-line fishermen, in their wholesale method of capture, in 

 America, at least, clean their fish at sea and throw the refuse, consist- 

 ing of the heads, entrails, &c, commonly called "gurry" in America, 

 overboard. This pollutes the fishing-ground and drives away fish for 

 a period of months or even years, and this in connection with the fish 

 that break away from the line on being hauled up, or which are partly 

 devoured at the bottom. 



This, with the alleged destruction of fish by the use of the trawl-line, 

 is the objection upon which the opponents rely as the most formidable 

 and as carrying the greatest weight. This will be considered in con- 

 siderable detail (in another place under the head of Disposal of Offal), 

 as, if established, it would constitute a reasonable ground for regulat- 

 ing this fishery, even by its restriction, limitation, or total abolition. 



Bearing now in mind that the objection to the trawl-line is based 

 more exclusively on the injurious effect of throwing overboard the offal 

 of the fish cleaned at sea, the matter of self-interest and the desire to 

 economize waste products will doubtless in time regulate the subject. 

 It is a very significant fact that in Europe, where the practice of trawl- 

 ing has been conducted for many centuries and on a scale greatly in 

 excess of anything of the kind in the United States, and where the same 

 ground has been fished over and over again by a much larger percent- 

 age of hooks than is ever seen off the coast of North America, there 

 has never yet been any suggestion of injury from this mode of fishing. 

 The controversy there has not been on account of the interference of 

 the long-line with the hand-line fishing ; but it has been in opposition 

 to the use of the beam-trawl, and it never, apparently, has come into 

 the mind of the hand-line fishermen that there was any evil whatever 

 resulting from the other mode of fishing besides the advantage given by 

 the fact of a greater proportionate yield. The drift and purse seine in- 

 terest, too, antagonizes the beam-trawl, but not the long-line, and it is 

 not to be imagined that any real objection to the long-line would have 

 failed tq be brought forward and to excite the animadversion of par- 

 ties fishing in a different manner. 



The largest lines used in America are far inferior to those used in 

 the British seas, where they are sometimes over 8 miles long and carry 

 between 6,000 and 7,000 hooks. 



The experiences recorded in such works as that of Holdsworth on 

 deep-sea fishing, and of other writers, all tend to show that notwith- 

 standing the ever-increasing number of long or trawl lines in certain 



