THE ROYAL COMMISSION OF 1863 23 



fishing than that practised in the neighbourhood 

 is to blame for any falling off in the value of the 

 fishery. In 1863 complaints were made that 

 beam-trawling was very destructive, because 

 it killed incredible quantities of spawn, fry, and 

 animals serving as food for fishes. Also, it caught 

 too much and led to " over-fishing, " and to the 

 supposed impoverishment of certain grounds. 

 Much less was known then of the natural 

 history of fishes, 1 but still enough was known to 

 convince the Commissioners that these charges 

 were without foundation. Fishermen, though 

 very observant, are apt to form absurd hypotheses 

 as to the nature of the organisms encountered by 

 them. As a matter of fact, it was found that 

 the only kind of spawn that might possibly be 

 destroyed by the trawl was that of the herring, 

 and there was then (and now) no evidence that the 

 destruction of this had any appreciable effect on 

 the abundance of herring. The charge that the 

 trawl destroyed animals serving as fish food was 

 also baseless. The trawl does indeed sweep over 

 the ground at the sea-bottom, and no doubt 

 destroys many of the organisms resting there. 

 It must be remembered, however, that the crush- 

 ing action of the irons and foot-rope is minimised, 

 because a portion of the weight of the apparatus 

 is lost by immersion in water ; and as the trawl 



1 G. O. Sars had just discovered the spawn of the cod, but the 

 Commissioners were apparently unaware of this. 



