CHAPTER XV 



THE DESTRUCTION OF IMMATURE FISH : THE 

 FISHERIES BILL OF 1904 



THAT the capture and destruction of immature 

 fish should inflict permanent damage on the sea- 

 fisheries is a conclusion which anyone who wit- 

 nesses, for the first time, a drag with a shrimp 

 trawl on a thickly populated fishing ground, or a 

 haul with a sprat or whitebait net, must almost 

 inevitably arrive at. In each of these methods of 

 fishing (as in many others) an enormous number 

 of young fishes are caught and destroyed. When 

 one realises that all these animals are killed before 

 they have the opportunity of reproducing their 

 kind, and that the same destruction is going on 

 almost continually all round the coast, the above 

 conclusion appears perfectly sound, and indeed is 

 almost irresistible. " Nothing can seem more 

 consonant to reason, or more necessary a priori^ 

 than that the supply of any kind of fish should 

 be permanently diminished by this great and 

 constant destruction of breeding fish, or of their 



