CHAPTER XL 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 



Are there more Fish in the Sea than ever came out of it ? Modern Writers on 

 the Fisheries "Were Fish ever so abundant as is said ? Salmon-Poaching 

 Value of Salmon Sea-Fish Destruction of the Young Is the demand 

 for Fish beginning to exceed the Supply? Evils of Exaggeration 

 Fish quite Local Incongruity of Protecting one Fish and not another 

 Difficulties in the way of a Close-Time Duties of the Board of White- 

 Fisheries Regulation of Salmon Elvers Justice to Upper Proprietors 

 The one Object of the Fishermen Conclusion. 



THE idea of a slowly but surely diminishing supply of 

 fish is no doubt alarming, for the public have hitherto 

 believed so devoutly in the frequently-quoted proverb of 

 " more fish in the sea than ever came out of it," that it has 

 never, except by a discerning few, been thought possible to 

 overfish ; and, consequently, while endeavouring to supply 

 the constantly-increasing demand, it has never sufficiently 

 been brought home to the public mind that it is possible to 

 reduce the breeding stock of our best kinds of sea-fish to 

 such an extent as may render it difficult to re-populate those 

 exhausted ocean colonies which in years gone by yielded, as 

 we have been often told, such miraculous draughts. It is 

 worthy of being noticed that most of our public writers who 

 venture to treat the subject of the fisheries proceed at once to 

 argue that the supply of fish is unlimited, and that the sea is 

 a gigantic fish-preserve into which man requires but to dip his 



