FACTORS OF DESTRUCTION 115 



length could possibly have been offered for sale. Between 

 Ault and Mers 40 fish were taken, of which a dozen 

 at most were fit for market ; in the Neuvillette channel 

 1 8 fish were saleable out of 44. In the North Sea the 

 capture of a pint of small shrimps entails the destruction 

 of five to ten times the same amount of small fish, which 

 die before they can be rejected. The Scottish shrimpers 

 destroy more than half a million fry per diem. The 

 whitebait fishers of Leigh, at the mouth of the Thames, 

 are no whit less destructive than their French colleagues. 

 Recently the naturalist Cunningham dragged a small 

 shrimp-trawl 22 feet in width in the estuary of the Mersey 

 for half an hour ; he obtained, mingled with 56 pints of 

 shrimps, 10,407 flounders, 375 lemon soles, 169 hake, 70 

 ling, and 12 soles; in short, a host of small and useless 

 fish. " What chance," says M. Roch, " can we expect 

 these species to have ? Can we seriously suppose that 

 fish which have been pressed to the bottom of a bag 

 which is almost hermetically sealed, and have been 

 dragged for several hours, at a considerable speed, over 

 the bottom of the sea, will be alive, or likely to recover 

 their pristine vitality, when thrown back into the sea ? 

 The shrimp-catchers themselves have no illusions on the 

 subject, neither have the curtain or drag-net fishers at 

 the mouths of rivers, concerning the enormous destruc- 

 tion caused by their method of fishing. They sell all 

 this ' spat ' for manure. These are interesting facts, 

 especially when we remember that a whole series 

 of laws exists to protect our coastal spawning-beds. 

 At the present moment (since 1892 matters have 

 only grown worse) the shrimps also are growing 

 fewer and fewer in the localities where the ' shrimp- 

 trawl ' has overturned the seaweed and the hatching- 

 grounds and nurseries. It seems to me that we ought 



