308 THE TRAWL QUESTION. [CHAP. vii. 



who see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the 

 deep." 



There has been a large amount of exaggeration as to the 

 injury done to the white-fish fishery by the trawls. Fisher- 

 men who have neither the capital nor the enterprise to en- 

 gage in trawling themselves are sure to abuse those who do ; 

 but the trawl is so formidable as to have induced various 

 French writers to advocate its prohibition. They describe 

 this instrument of the fishery as terrible in its effects, leaving, 

 when it is used, deep furrows in the bottom of the sea, and 

 crushing alike the fry and the spawn; but there is a very 

 evident exaggeration in this charge, because as a general rule 

 the beam-trawl cannot be worked with safety except on a 

 sandy or muddy bottom, and, so far as we know, fish prefer 

 to spawn on ground that is slightly rocky or weedy, so that 

 the spawn may have something to adhere to, which it evi- 

 dently requires in order to escape destruction ; and when a 

 quantity of spawn is discerned on a bit of sea-weed or rock, 

 we always find that, from some viscid property of which 

 it is possessed, it adheres to its resting-place with great 

 tenacity. The trawl-net, however destructive its agency, 

 cannot, I fear, be dispensed with ; and, used at proper 

 seasons and at proper places, is the best engine of cap- 

 ture we can have for the kinds of fish which it is em- 

 ployed to secure. The trawl is very largely used by English 

 fishermen, but it is only of late years that the trawlers 

 have come so far north as Sunderland and Berwick, and 

 it is the fishermen of these places who have got up the cry 

 about that net being so injurious to the fisheries. In Scot- 

 land there are no resident trawlers, the fisheries being chiefly 

 of the nature of a coasting industry, where the men, as a 

 general rule, only go out to sea for a few hours and then 

 return with their capture. Having been frequently on board 

 of the trawling ships, I may perhaps be allowed to set 



