THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 41 



the drift fisheries and of the analogous fisheries for pilchards, 

 sprats and whitebait, may be placed at from 2,500,000 to 

 2,750,000, and that of the fisheries for migratory fish at 

 900,000, it is a safe and moderate estimate to compute 

 the produce of the whole of these fisheries at 3,500,000 

 annually. 



These fisheries, however, important as they are, bear no 

 comparison with the great fishery for bottom fish, which used 

 to be exclusively taken by lines, but which are now chiefly 

 captured by trawl-nets. It is no exaggeration to say that 

 London and the great centres of population are dependent 

 for their supply of fish on trawlers ; and that if, from any 

 cause whatever, trawling were suddenly terminated, its ter- 

 mination would be followed by famine in the fish market. 

 No clear history of trawl-fishing has ever yet been written ; 

 and its origin is uncertain. There are, however, many 

 reasons for believing that trawling, to a limited extent, has 

 been practised for centuries in British waters, and that 

 trawlers worked in Torbay in the reign of Elizabeth. 



Trawling, however, if it were practised by our ancestors, 

 was chiefly confined to Devonshire, and was carried on in 

 only a humble fashion. The vast extension of this mode 

 of fishing did not take place till our own time. Till, indeed, 

 railways were invented the present system was impossible, 

 since no means were available for carrying the tons of fish, 

 which were thus caught daily, from the ports to the markets. 

 Trawling is now carried on off almost all the coasts of this 

 country. The Fleetwood trawlers work in Morecambe Bay, 

 the Liverpool trawlers on the smooth bottom of the sea 

 between the Isle of Man and Lancashire, while they occa- 

 sionally leave their ordinary grounds and go as far south 

 as Aberystwyth, The Brixham trawlers working mainly 

 in Torbay and Mount's Bay also frequently visit the 



