DEEP SEA FISHERIES. 171 



It would be difficult to over-estimate the value of deep sea fisheries; in which, according 

 to trustworthy statistics, England and Wales alone employ nearly 15,000 boats, with nearly 

 double that number of " hands," added to whom are over 14,000 others to whom they givj 

 occasional employment on the coasts. The report of Commissioners Frank Buckland and 

 Spencer Walpole, who were instructed to investigate the modes of fishing in the tvo 

 -countries named, and how far they were conducted on proper principles, has therefore both 

 importance and interest. It was feared that in certain directions deep-sea fishing, which 

 undeniably leads to the capture of myriads of young and useless fish, might have the same 

 -effect as wasteful fishing and dredging did in the case of the salmon and oyster. 



The Commissioners assure us that there is neither ground for alarm nor for legislative 

 interference. The beneficent sea is practically inexhaustible. " Bearing in mind," wrote a 

 commentator on the Report, " how much has been said regarding the wilful destruction of 

 spawn, it is startling to hear that nobody ' has ever seen the eggs of soles, turbot, 

 plaice, and other like fish after their extrusion from the parent/ while, with respect to 

 the finny tribe in general, the Commissioners add : ' So far as we know, there is, with one 

 exception herring spawn no clearly-established instance of the spawn of any edible fish 

 being raised in a trawl net or taken in any other net/ With these words one bugbear 

 of the sea disappears. Nature, whatever may be her shortcomings elsewhere, knows how to 

 take care of herself here. She carries on her life-giving processes beyond our reach, and 

 is veiled in a mystery which even the keen observation of the present time cannot 

 penetrate, for the Commissioners remind us that, generally speaking, f little is known 

 either of the seasons in which sea fish spawn or of the places in which the spawn is 

 cast ; still less of the time which the spawn, after it is cast, takes to vivify/ But if 

 the spawn evades the power of man, the young fish are not so fortunate. It is 

 unquestionable that an immense waste of fry of all kinds goes on round our coasts. The 

 trawler, the shrimper, the seine net, and the fixed engine, combine against these little 

 creatures, tons upon tons of which are annually destroyed. At first sight it would seem 

 that a grave matter here presents itself. The Commissioners, however, proceed so to 

 reason away its importance that in the end it assumes very small dimensions indeed. 

 Starting from the indisputable fact that all animals have f a tendency to increase at a 

 greater rate than their means of subsistence/ Messrs. Buckland and Walpole go on to 

 show that this especially applies to sea fish; and they take as an example the fecund 

 herring. Assuming that the British waters contain sixty thousand millions of female 

 herrings, each of which deposits twenty thousand eggs, it follows that the total number 

 of eggs which, but for natural and artificial checks, would come to maturity is twelve 

 hundred millions of millions an expression which is easy to put on paper, but which 

 the mind can no more comprehend than it can grasp the idea of eternity. Enough 

 that these countless hordes, if compressed by five hundreds into foot cubes, would build 

 a wall round the earth two hundred feet broad and one hundred high. The inference 

 from such astounding figures is that man's destructiveness can do little. He takes one 

 herring for every half-million of eggs, while the original stock would be kept up were 

 only one egg to mature out of ten thousand. All fish, it is true, are not as prolific as 

 the herring, but the argument applies to each kind in its degree, and may be summed 



