24 BRITISH FISHERIES 



warp passes obliquely upward towards the ship, 

 only so much pressure on the bottom is allowed 

 as will cause the net to sweep up the animals 

 lying there. Anyone who has looked over the con- 

 tents of a trawl-net, when these are emptied out on 

 deck, will see that the invertebrate animals brought 

 up, many of them extremely delicate in structure, 

 are for the most part uninjured. 



But the other charge made, that trawling and 

 the use of fine-meshed nets in bays and estuaries 

 destroyed immature fishes and fry to a wasteful 

 degree, is apparently a very reasonable one. I 

 shall examine this in detail later on, and may 

 therefore dismiss it with little ceremony here. 

 The attitude of the 1863 Commissioners on this 

 question was interesting, and may be briefly 

 stated. It was true, they contended, that enormous 

 destruction was effected in fishing operations. 

 But was this destruction wasteful! Enormous 

 as it was, it was insignificant when compared 

 with the destruction which went on normally in 

 nature, as the result of agencies over which man 

 had no control. The destruction of immature 

 fish by fishing operations was not, therefore, 

 wasteful in degree, and did no permanent harm 

 to the fisheries. I do not see how this con- 

 clusion could reasonably be denied in 1863, 

 however much it may be necessary to modify it 

 at the present time. 



When the principles thus laid down by the 



