FISHING NATIONS AND THE FISHERIES 293 



years the yield of the madragues of Languedoc and 

 Provence has been decreasing, but not that of the seines 

 and courantilles. The tunny fishery might well be 

 stimulated by means of swift and handy vessels which 

 would fall upon the shoals of tunny in the open sea. 



Here I must close this rapid sketch of the fisheries of 

 France. We have learned from it that the fisherman, 

 left to himself, was the prisoner of his social inheritance 

 no less than of his present poverty, and that he could 

 not unaided cross the narrow limits of the primitive 

 oecumene. 



