AREA OF NORTH SEA FISHERIES 49 



and the ' liners/ who catch their fish on hooks attached 

 to long lines sometimes seven miles in length and 

 carrying 7,000 hooks which are lowered to near the 

 bottom and attached to buoys. The ' liners ' also first 

 exploited the more central portions of the North Sea, 

 fishing the great Fisher Bank for many years before 

 the appearance there, about thirty years ago, of the 

 trawlers, who have only used it as a winter-ground 

 since about 1885. It was not until about 1891 that 

 trawlers visited the Icelandic grounds. 



In spite of the increase in the area of the fishing- 

 ground which took place in the last century, the 

 intensity of the fishing has more than kept up with 

 the new areas exploited. Professor Huxley's Com- 

 mission held the view that not only were there as good 

 fish in the sea as ever came out of it, but that the fish 

 were as many and as large as before, and that there 

 was no reason to suppose their number would 

 diminish. Indeed, when we consider that an unferti- 

 lized fish-egg is rarely found in the sea, and that, 

 according to Dr. Fulton, of the Fishery Board for 

 Scotland, the female turbot produces annually 8,600,000 

 eggs, the cod 4,500,000, the haddock 450,000, the plaice 

 300,000, the flounder 1,400,000, the sole 570,000, whilst 

 the herring has to be content with the comparatively 

 meagre total of 31,000, optimism seems permissible. 

 On the other hand, the reflection that, if the stock 

 of cod remains about constant, only two out of the 

 8,600,000 ova attain maturity, gives some idea of the 

 destructive forces at work. 



The eggs are expelled into water, whilst a male is 

 ' standing by,' fertilized in the water, and (except in 

 the case of the herring, whose eggs sink) those of the 

 chief food-fishes float to the surface, where they pass 

 the first stages of their development. Except, again 

 in the case of the herring, which has definitely 

 localized spawning-grounds, there has hitherto been 



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