i;o THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



The sea If, in so comparatively simple a matter as the observa- 



fisheries. 



tion of the habits of a fish like the salmon, passing a 

 considerable period of its existence within the narrow 

 limits of the head-waters of our rivers, Parliament was led 

 so far astray as to fix, for example, a close season during 

 one of the best portions of the fishing season, it is not to be 

 wondered at that its knowledge of the natural history of 

 purely sea fish was of the most limited extent. One Act 

 (3 Jas. I. c. 12) prefaced its enactments as to the destruc- 

 Early ignor- tion of the spawn and fry of sea fish by very gravely 



ance con- 

 cerning them, asserting that " it is certainly known by daily experience 



that the brood of sea fish is spawned and lieth in still 

 waters, where it may have rest to receive nourishment and 

 grow to perfection." This contribution to natural history 

 may be matched by another afforded by 9 Geo. II. c. 33, 

 which states that " lobsters crawl close to shore to leave 

 their spawn in the chinks of the rocks, and as much under 

 the influence of the sun as possible," and, upon that pre- 

 mise, proceeds to fix a close time for lobsters from June 1st 

 to September 1st. Parliament was much wiser when, in 

 providing in a previous Act (10 & II Win. IV. c. 24) that 

 no lobsters should be brought ashore or sold under " eight 

 inches in length from the peak of the nose unto the end of 

 the middle fin of the tail," it hazarded no doubtful state- 

 ments as to the domestic economy of the lobster. It is 

 not a little curious that this provision, after having ceased 

 to be observed, and having apparently been forgotten, was 

 revived in the existing Act regulating the capture and sale 

 of lobsters and crabs (40 & 41 Viet. c. 42), and is almost 

 the only provision of the old laws thus re-enacted intact. 

 A different fate, however, befel all the other Acts passed 

 for the protection of purely sea fish. The most important 

 of these, perhaps, were those relating to the herring 



