208 



THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



Littoral fish 

 and animals. 



Crabs and 

 lobsters. 



circumstances are widely different. Instead of being 

 virtual prisoners before they are actually netted, the fish 

 are roaming in a state of complete liberty in an element 

 over which man has absolutely no control ; of which he 

 can only skim the surface, and scratch the. bottom here and 

 there ; into which he can only peer at the best even with 

 the aid of water-telescopes and other appliances a few 

 fathoms ; and in which he can no more confine the fish 

 than he can enclose the birds of the air with a single net. 

 One exception, or at most two exceptions only, can be 

 made from this general description of man's relation, in 

 fishery matters, to the sea. The first exception would 

 embrace those creatures which, local in their habits and 

 habitation, are placed by nature in a position somewhat 

 akin to that of fresh-water fish, viz. the Crustacea and 

 mollusca which, living principally on the fringe of the 

 coast, and slow in their movements, if not actually motion- 

 less (like oysters and mussels when firmly established on 

 their beds or scalps), are easily entrapped, and the supply 

 of which, if not susceptible of annihilation, may be largely 

 overdrawn. Seals, and possibly such fish as smelts or 

 sparlings, may be included in this first exception ; while 

 the second exception would embrace the whale, an animal 

 of slow reproductive power, whose fecundity bears about 

 the same proportion to that of an average fish as I does to 

 1,000,000. It is obvious, however, that even these excep- 

 tions are not on an exact equality with inland fisheries from 

 the point of view from which we are regarding them. At 

 any rate, it has not yet been established, as clearly as it has 

 in the case of salmon, that man's operations could actually 

 annihilate either crabs or lobsters, oysters or mussels, seals 

 or whales. 



Legislation, therefore, on these points is, and should be, 



