THE CATCHING OF LOBSTERS 



suspended in the " belly " of the pot, and the result is 

 that, when the tackle has been down for a few hours, a 

 store of struggling lobsters will be found lying at the 

 bottom, for not one of them will have the good sense to 

 try to get out by the way he came in. 



Lobsters are by no means so plentiful round these 

 coasts as they used to be, no doubt because it is only 

 comparatively lately that the law has troubled to protect 

 them ; and the greater number of those sold at the shops 

 come from Scandinavia. Nearly three-quarters of a 

 million fish are imported from there every year. Scot- 

 land, however, still seems to maintain her position as a 

 lobster country, and the Orkneys and the Hebrides send 

 from one to two hundred thousand fish in the course of a 

 twelvemonth to Billingsgate. 



The canned lobsters, apart from those from Scandi- 

 navia, come from Newfoundland and British Columbia. 

 Latterly South Africa has also embarked in the tinned- 

 lobster trade, and it is probable that the Cape Colony 

 will not stop at lobsters, but will, in years to come, 

 develop into one of the world^s great fishing centres. 

 Why not ? It has hundreds of miles of coast-line ; its 

 latitude is about the same as that of Western Australia 

 or Queensland ; above all, along the bank that runs out 

 from Cape Agulhas, is the end of the cold current which 

 sweeps down the east coast from Madagascar, and which 

 ensures a perennial and bountiful supply of fish. 



The chief Norwegian lobster export centres are Bergen 

 and Christiansund, which two towns form the limits of a 

 curved line of the oldest and perhaps most productive 



168 



