294 MODERN SEA FISHING 



for they do not disturb the eggs.' These worthy but un- 

 practical people altogether left out of consideration the fact 

 that the eggs hatch, and in due course the resulting small fish 

 retire to the bottom, where they are scraped up by the trawl 

 together with stones, prickly sea urchins, conger eels, -spiny 

 thornbacks, oysters, sharp-edged shells of various kinds, and a 

 vast quantity of ddbris ; and that, after being towed along in 

 the cod of a net in such dangerous company, these wretched 

 little creatures are brought out and emptied on deck, crushed, 

 bruised, and injured almost beyond the power of identification. 



It has been truly said that you can prove anything by means 

 of statistics, and figures have been used to prove that our 

 fisheries are not being injured by trawls. The proof is easily 

 effected in the following manner : The number of boxes of 

 fish caught in 1866, let us say, are not so many as the number 

 of boxes of fish caught in 1895. ' You see,' says the trawler, ' we 

 are catching more fish now, therefore our fisheries cannot be 

 falling off.' But the weak point in this argument is that there 

 are many more vessels with much more deadly engines of 

 destruction engaged in the fishing industry now than there 

 were in 1866, which is the real reason why more fish are 

 brought to market. Moreover, our boats go farther afield to 

 new fishing grounds. Even the trawlers and their learned 

 friends admit that certain kinds of fish are scarcer than they 

 used to be. 



Are the fisheries deteriorating or not ? The only practicable 

 way to test the question is to compare the season's catches at 

 the present day made by one or some other given number of 

 boats, with the catches made by the same number of boats, 

 working similar gear, at an earlier period of similar duration. 



Perhaps the most useful work the Marine Biological Asso- 

 ciation ever did was in sending Mr. W. L. Holt to make inves- 

 tigations into this subject. In the report of the Association 



