DESTRUCTION OF IMMATURE FISH 277 



investigations 1 made showed that the proportion 

 of young herrings present varied from i per cent, 

 to about 20 per cent., sprats forming the bulk of 

 the total fishes caught. An estimate was made of 

 the extent of the fishing in the Firth of Forth, 

 the Firth of Tay, and the Moray Firth during 

 a single winter (1882-3), and it was found that 

 over 143 millions of young herrings had been 

 caught, in addition to a much greater quantity 

 of sprats. Most of this bulk of fish was used as 

 manure. It is only in respect of the herrings 

 caught that we can speak of whitebait fishing 

 as destroying immature fishes. The sprat is a 

 fully developed and mature animal, though its 

 average size is not much over three inches. The 

 herrings caught are, of course, all immature. 



Trawl-fishing is also a most effectual method 

 for capturing immature fishes, particularly in 

 shallow inshore waters, which in most places are 

 the chosen haunts of these animals. Inshore 

 trawling by small sailing boats is responsible for 

 a great amount of such capture and destruction ; 

 but even in what is called deep-sea trawling, which 

 is prosecuted far out at sea, a large proportion of 

 the fish caught are not sexually mature. Attention, 

 in recent years, has been mainly focussed on the 

 destruction of immature flat fish on a certain area 

 of the North Sea off the coasts of Denmark, 

 Germany, and Holland, where the water is 



1 Matthews, Rept. Scottish Fishery Board for 1883, p. 60. 



