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developing, and young fish crushed completely by the 

 movement of the apparatus. That these facts reveal an 

 enormous quantity of fish destroyed in repeated castings 

 there should arise no sort of doubt, and the same thing has 

 been seen by me on various occasions in the bou or chalut, 

 which is worked by boats in the Mediterranean and in the 

 southern ocean of Spain, as well as in the jdbegas and 

 boliches, which drag from land throughout the Spanish 

 continent whenever they find suitable localities. I have 

 seen more than this. I have seen in the Gulf of Valencia 

 drawn up in the sack of one of these nets so great a quantity 

 of red mullet that they were all caked together, such was 

 the maceration to which this delicate fish had been sub- 

 jected, although the injury was the cause of a much less 

 price being obtained for fish captured in this manner. 



Of the disastrous results of this fishery we have un- 

 questionable examples in Spain. A law fixed an imaginary 

 zone near to land within which this kind of fishing was 

 prohibited, and when at the end of some years the fishery 

 of non-prohibited places was exhausted, application was 

 made to fish within the zone, the Government prudently re- 

 fused to permit it A close time having been also appointed 

 the fishermen asked that it might be deferred. At some 

 places, Malaga among them, the fishermen who had used 

 these nets for years growing tired of the damage they caused 

 to their catch, bought them all up and burned them, at the 

 same time petitioning the government for their extermina- 

 tion from the province. Now what do these facts prove ? 

 They prove without a shadow of doubt two things. The 

 first, that fish obtained by trawling are of inferior value to 

 those caught with hooks or floating nets, on account of the 

 crushing which renders them liable to early putrefaction. 

 Secondly, that in those places where trawling is allowed, the 



