CHAP, ii.] EARLY FISH COMMERCE. 35 



cutive, or indeed very reliable, so that we are, as it were, com- 

 pelled to imagine the progress of fish commerce, and to picture 

 in our mind's eye its transition from the period when the mere 

 satisfaction of individual wants was all that was cared for, .to 

 a time when fish began to be bartered for land goods such as 

 farm, dairy, and garden produce and to trace, as we best can, 

 that commerce through these obscure periods to the present 

 time, when the fisheries form a prominent outlet for capital, 

 are a large source of national revenue, and are attracting, be- 

 cause of these qualities, an amount of attention never before 

 bestowed upon them. 



Fish commerce being an industry naturally arising out of 

 the immediate wants of mankind, has unfortunately, as re- 

 gards the article dealt in, been invested with an amount of 

 exaggeration that has no parallel in other branches of industry. 

 Blunders perpetrated long ago in Encyclopaedias and other 

 works, when the life and habits of all kinds of fish, from the 

 want of investigation, were but little understood, have been, 

 with those additions which under such circumstances always 

 accumulate, handed down to the present day, so that even 

 now we are carrying on some of our fisheries on altogether 

 false assumptions, and in many cases evidently killing the 

 goose for the sake of the golden egg : in other words, never 

 dreaming that there will be a fishing to-morrow, which must 

 be as important, or even more important, than the fishing of 

 to-day, beyond which the fisher class as a rule never look. 



It is curious to note that there was in most countries a 

 commerce in fresh-water fish long before the food treasures of 

 the sea were broken upon. This is particularly noticeable in 

 our own country, and is vouched for by many authorities both 

 at home and abroad. We can all imagine also, that in the 

 pre-historic or very early ages, when the land was untilled and 

 virgin, and the earth was undrained, there were sources for 

 the supply of fresh-water fish that do not now exist in conse- 



