FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 201 



which is known to be deposited and to lie on the bottom of 

 the sea, where it might be supposed to be peculiarly liable 

 to destruction by the beam trawl. Quantities of it, in the 

 shape of a jelly-like mass of tiny glutinous globules, are 

 occasionally brought up in the trawl ; but the number of 

 eggs destroyed in this way and that they are all actually 

 destroyed there is no positive proof, since some may possibly 

 develop when cast overboard again bears so infinitesimal 

 a proportion to the incalculable millions of myriads left in 

 the sea, uninjured and untouched, that it is quite as likely 

 that the sea itself may be emptied by the efforts of the 

 Great Eastern Railway Company to supply London with 

 sea-water, as that the herring tribe will be exterminated by 

 the action of the trawl. 



If it were possible to exterminate the herring at all, this is it possible 



- ... to exterminate 



feat ought to be in a fair way towards accomplishment t he herring ? 

 by the use of what is considered the legitimate herring- 

 net, the drift-net. Last year the Scotch Herring Board 

 branded 231,549 barrels of herrings as "Crown Fulls." 

 Each of these barrels contained about 800 herrings. Pro- 

 bably half of these herrings were females, containing about 

 30,000 eggs each. Therefore the 231,500 barrels contained 

 not only 231,500 X 800 = 185,200,000 actual fish, but 



185,200,000 - , 



X 30,000 = 2,778,000,000,000 fish in embryo . 



in addition, and represented therefore a total destruction 

 of 2,778,185,200,000 herrings in esse or in posse. But the 

 231,500 barrels of " crown fulls " branded were only one-fifth 

 of the total quantity of herrings cured, and probably not 

 one-tenth of the number killed in Scotland alone in one 

 year, so that even the above enormous computation must be 

 still further increased before the real destruction of herrings 

 by the agency of man can be represented in figures. To 

 this calculation must be added the still vaster quantities of 



