FISHER 



from 1918 until Aug., 1919, when 

 he succeeded Sir John Bradbury 

 as permanent secretary of the 

 treasury. His signature succeeded 

 that of Bradbury on the currency 

 notes. . 



Fisher, WILLIAM MARK. British- 

 American artist. Born at Boston, 

 U.S.A., of American and Irish 

 parents, he studied art in Paris 

 when 20 years of age, and after a 

 brief sojourn in America, settled 

 in England. He was elected A.R. A. 

 in 1911, and R.A. in 1919. His 

 subjects are rural scenes, mostly 

 taken from the Essex country 

 in which he lived. 



3173 



Fisher, SYDNEY ARTHUR (b. 

 1850). Canadian politician. Born 

 at Montreal, June 12, 1850. he was 

 educated at the high school, and 

 at McGill University. He then 

 went to Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 where he studied agriculture, and 

 later became a farmer at Knowl- 

 ton, Quebec. In 1882 Fisher was 

 elected for Brome to the Dominion 

 House of Commons, and was 

 minister for agriculture, 1896- 

 1911. He was largely responsible 

 for the reorganization of the civil 

 service by introducing new rules 

 with regard to entrance by a system 

 of competitive examination. 



FISHERIES: THE INDUSTRY & ITS GROWTH 



Gerald Leighton, M.D., Inspector, Scottish Board ot Health 



Additional information on the subject of fisheries will be found in 

 the articles on the various fish, e.g. Cod; Herring; Mackerel, etc. 

 See also Trawling and the articles Fish Culture ; Fish Curing, etc. 



Dwellers upon coastal margins 

 have always depended to a large 

 extent upon their skill as fishermen 

 for their sustenance. In modern 

 times, however, the' world's fish- 

 eries mean more than the catching 

 of local fish for local needs. As 

 knowledge of fishing areas has 

 become greater, and methods of 

 catching have developed, the in- 

 dustry has taken a prominent 

 position in world commerce. 



Methods of preservation and 

 treatment have caused fish to be 

 distributed all over the world, 

 even to the interior of continents, 

 where fish food, unknown previ- 

 ously, is to-day common. In this 

 advance the processes of drying, 

 smoking, refrigerating, and canning 

 have played an important part. 

 Pelagic and Deep Sea Fish 



Marine fish may be divided into 

 shore, pelagic, and deep sea fish. 

 The shore fish live either on or 

 just under the surface of the water 

 close to the land. Some are con- 

 fined to shallow coasts with sandy 

 bottoms, others to rocky coasts. 

 Pelagic fish live near the surface of 

 the open ocean, and only come 

 near the shore for spawning or 

 food. Most of them spawn in the 

 open sea. They roam over large 

 areas, either in virtue of their 

 strength as swimmers or by the 

 aid of ocean currents. 



Deep sea fish live in the depths, 

 where light, temperature, and 

 movement are but little felt. These 

 groups cannot be separated by hard 

 and fast lines. They merge gradu- 

 ally, and fish probably change 

 from one to the other. These 

 changes are occasioned by the 

 search for food. Thus the surface 

 of the sea near the shore some- 

 times contains numerous small 

 crustaceans, or molluscs, upon 

 which fish in the open ocean feed. 



The latter, therefore, come close 

 into shore, pursued in their turn 

 by other large fish which prey upon 

 them. Edible fish all come within 

 the groups of shore or pelagic fishes. 

 European Fisheries 



Of the principal European fish- 

 eries, the shore fishing of France 

 includes herring, mackerel, sar- 

 dines, anchovies, sprats, tunny, 

 salmon, sturgeon, and oysters. 

 The deep sea fisheries, including 

 those from Iceland, the North Sea, 

 and Newfoundland, are mainly 

 those of the cod, but include her- 

 ring and mackerel. German fishing 

 vessels land their fish on the coasts 

 of the North and Baltic Seas, the 

 most important being cod, had- 

 dock, coal-fish, whiting, plaice, 

 lemon sole, ling, and herring. 

 Holland's vessels land principally 

 herring, plaice, flounders, an- 

 chovies, and smelts. The chief 

 fishery of Belgium is of the inshore 

 kind, and that of Denmark consists 

 of flat fish, eels, herring, and cod. 

 Of the produce of the Portuguese 

 fisheries, more than half is sardines. 



The Norwegian fisheries are by 

 far the most important of the 

 European fisheries, and have 

 steadily increased in value during 

 recent years, cod and herring being 

 the first on the list. In 1915 the 

 value of the fish landed rose to 

 over 10,000,000. 



Newfoundland's chief catches 

 are cod, herring, and whale. The 

 Canadian fisheries embrace cod, 

 the largest quantity, followed by 

 salmon, hake, pollack, halibut, 

 haddock, white fish, sardines. 



The main fisheries of the U.S.A. 

 are: (1) on the Atlantic herring, 

 cod, alewives, haddock, hake, pol- 

 lack, shad, flounders, halibut, 

 mackerel, menhaden, and mullet ; 

 (2) in the Gulf of Mexico mullet 

 and snapper; (3) on the Pacific 



FISHERIES 



coast salmon, halibut, flounders, 

 and cod. In the Mississippi River, 

 carp, and in the Great La/ies, lake 

 herring are caught. 



BRITISH FISHERIES. The edible 

 fish included in the statistical re- 

 turns of Great Britain are obtained 

 from such widely separated ^pots as 

 N. Scotland and the Bay of Biscay, 

 the Porcupine and Rockall Banks 

 of the Atlantic Ocean, and the 

 coasts of Denmark, Holland, Nor- 

 way, and Shetland. During the 

 past 30 years the industry has seen 

 the disappearance of the old fish- 

 ing smack in favour of the power- 

 ful and fast steam trawler, together 

 with improvements in the gear and 

 machinery employed, and the in- 

 troduction on a large scale of 

 ice for preserving the fish. Thus 

 fish can now be brought from far 

 greater distances than was for- 

 merly the case, and trawlers can 

 remain at sea for one or two weeks 

 before landing their catch. 



The position of Great Britain as 

 an island has given her an unique 

 advantage in the industry ; and 

 the enormous figures given in the 

 official returns suggest either that 

 the quantity of fish must seriously 

 diminish as time goes on, or else 

 that the supply is inexhaustible. 

 The latter is probably the truth, 

 provided that the fish get fair 

 treatment. The reason is bio- 

 logical, the extraordinary power of 

 reproduction possessed by fish. 

 A herring produces from 20,000 to 

 30,000 annually a small figure 

 compared to turbot and cod, and 

 some others, which produce mil- 

 lions. This fertility explains why, 

 for example, it is possible for the 

 Scottish herring fishery alone to 

 handle about 1,000,000,000 fish 

 annually. 



Experimental Conservation 



Fishermen do little or nothing 

 towards the conservation of their 

 catch. The few efforts made to re- 

 stock the sea are experimental, and 

 negligible from the point of view 

 of the total result. In the period 

 preceding the Great War, there 

 were some 80,000 men and boys 

 engaged in the fishing fleets of 

 Great Britain, excluding Ireland, 

 entirely engaged in catching and 

 landing fish, and not in any way 

 producing them in the sense that 

 the farmer produces meat. 



EDIBLE FISH. From a theo- 

 retical point of view any fish which 

 is wholesome food would be con- 

 sidered edible ; but a number of 

 the smaller fishes found along the 

 sea-shore are commercially to be 

 ignored Different countries have 

 different tastes. For example, the 

 bass is highly esteemed in Constan- 

 tinople, and grows in Turkish 

 waters to a much larger size than 



