116 SEA FISHERIES 



to ensure that nothing is used but the basket-trap, as 

 it is used on the Breton coast (even in the interests of 

 the shrimp and prawn fishery itself) and that a serious 

 examination should be made of the damage done by the 

 use of curtain and stake and drag nets at the mouths of 

 rivers ; damage so abominable that whole waggon-loads 

 of the young fish killed by these devices are carried away 

 to fatten the land." 



Here I end the tale of the ravages from which the 

 dweller on the coast suffers, yet which he has deliberately 

 created. The chief sinner is not the fisherman on a 

 large scale, but the small fisherman, the inshore fisher ; 

 who devastates the breeding and spawning grounds, 

 uproots the seaweed, kills the invertebrates, the habitual 

 food of the fish, kills the fry and the young fish, and 

 makes a desert everywhere. 



The medal has two faces : we have examined that 

 on which the ravages of man are recorded. Now let us 

 turn it over, to read the inscription of the necessary 

 reparation. 



