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fisheries or their complete exhaustion is not referred to in 

 its absolute sense, but only in the sense of their use for 

 mankind, and from this point of view let us demonstrate 

 the most practical point, viz., that in which fish are compelled 

 to abandon places which are within the reach of fishermen. 



It is not the opinion of Spanish fishermen exclusively 

 that the sea fisheries are inexhaustible, but it is an idea 

 that gains general credence ; they know the fabulous 

 reproductive power of fishes, they contemplate the huge 

 expanse the fish live in, which they suppose to be full of 

 the species they try to catch ; they compare these spaces 

 and their enormous population with those actually taken, 

 and the distance run, then, without troubling their heads 

 further on the matter, jump to the firm conviction that 

 fisheries are inexhaustible. They let down their nets into 

 the sea eager to gather in the fruits of their precarious 

 calling, only to draw them up empty, try a second and 

 third time with the same result, and then return home to 

 think on the bad issue of their day's toil ; and when this is 

 repeated day after day they attribute it all to the variation 

 of currents, to atmospheric influences, to the noise of 

 artillery on vessels and on shore, to the transit of steam 

 ships through the fishing grounds, to epidemics among the 

 fish, to caprices of fortune, to witchcraft, and, in fine, to 

 anything and everything, rather than the destruction 

 caused by an overworking of the fisheries. 



Sometimes a more thoughtful individual attributes this to 

 the method of working the fishing tackle, he notices that 

 the drag nets in sweeping the bottom bring to the surface 

 rooted up vegetation which serves as pasture for one species,, 

 as shelter for another, and as a nursery for the young of 

 others, and also observes that among the entangled herbage 

 are myriads of germs and young fry macerated by the 



