350 . 



be done to protect their interests, or increase the supply 

 of this fish, would be most valuable to the fishing com- 

 munity. With regard to what had been said about legal 

 interference, he might say that in 1877 an Act of Parlia- 

 ment was passed to a certain extent protecting crabs 

 and lobsters, by prohibiting the sale of undersized fish. 

 The question of berried hens, as they were called, was 

 very much discussed when that Act was passed, and he 

 took a great deal of trouble to get information and 

 evidence with regard to them. It was not the cooks 

 alone who were to blame in causing berried hens to be 

 sent so largely into the market, the fishermen themselves 

 doing it, because the lobsters having berries on them 

 were in as good condition for eating as at any time in 

 the year, and if the sale of berried hens were prohibited, 

 as Mr. Saville Kent remarked, and as he had heard 

 from the fishermen themselves, they would simply evade 

 the law by brushing off the berries. The size of crabs 

 was another question which was very largely discussed, 

 and, as Mr. Birkbeck could bear him out, the people 

 in Norfolk, where crabs were not as large as on the south 

 and west coasts, were in favour of a larger size being 

 named than that which was placed in the Act, viz., 

 44- in. across the crab's back. That was such a tiny thing, 

 and contained so little meat, that a very small extension 

 in the size would produce much more valuable food for 

 the table, and the fish would increase its species in an 

 enormously large proportion. With regard to the district 

 which Mr. Cornish had spoken of, where fishing could be 

 carried on for over 200 square miles without doing any 

 harm, he would point out that there was a great natural 

 protection existing there, for that fishing ground was 



