THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 141 



The fact that the throwing overboard of offal does not iu itself drive 

 away iish generally is illustrated in the fishery for the small dog shark 

 about Proviucetown. Great numbers of these are taken annually for 

 the livers, which are removed, and the rest of the fish thrown over- 

 board. The result is apparently to increase the number of these fish, 

 and make the catch of a larger number practicable. 



The number of skates is greatly increased in any given locality, on 

 the banks where they abound, by throwing overboard large quantities 

 of gurry. This is especially noticeable to the trawl fishermen, who often 

 find after remaining iu one berth or position for several days, that the 

 ends of the trawls next the vessel have on them an increased number 

 of skates. 



In further reference to this subject of gurry on fishing-grounds and 

 to the alleged wastage of fish by dropping from trawls and gill-nets, 

 it is not a little remarkable that the question of the injury of the use 

 of the trawl-line to the fish and fisheries of the locality where prac- 

 ticed, should at the present time be for the most part confined to North 

 America, while European writers now scarcely refer to any inconven- 

 ience likely to result from this cause. The practice of line fishing is 

 considered in its two divisions of hand-line and trawl, or long line, but 

 this is merely a question of comparative expediency and the cost of the 

 investment. 



In the questiou at issue between the fishermen of Great Britain in 

 1806, the case lay for the most part between the trawls on the one side 

 and the hand-line fishermen on the other, the latter making no charge 

 of any injury to the fishing in the rejoinder against the long-lines. 



It is perhaps less the practice iu Europe than it is in America to clean 

 the fish at sea, and to throw the refuse overboard, a wasteful practice, 

 which of course is to be discountenanced. In Norway, on the great fish- 

 ing-grounds, the sale of the offal to companies organized for utilizing it 

 is a matter of very great importance. It is sold at a fair price, the 

 dried head of the cod being in part prepared as food for cattle, but for 

 the most part converted into guano, which has an established position 

 in the European markets, as might be expected, allowing it to consti- 

 tute one-third of the total weight of nearly 20,000,000 codfish. 



In England the codfish taken are for the most part sold entire or 

 dressed in the fishmongers' establishments. 



If a considerable percentage of the fish taken on the long-line or 

 trawl is necessarily lost by dropping off from the hooks by their exces- 

 sive weight on being hauled up, the injury, if it be one, of their decay 

 on the sea-bottom would in all probability have impressed itself upon 

 the minds of observers in England ; but the only allusions I have been 

 able to find to this subject of dead fish on fishing-grounds is in connec- 

 tion with the herring fishery on the coast of Norway, where it was al- 

 leged that the dead fish which were lost from the gill-nets polluted the 

 water and tended to drive the herring away. 



