FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 259 



result restrain British fishermen from fishing on certain 

 spawning grounds, whilst foreigners remained unimpeded 

 by their own laws, even if the now almost disproved suppo- 

 sition were admitted, that any fishing, however incessant, 

 could materially lessen the vast resources of the deep seas. 

 The only methods, and these are indirect, by which legisla- 

 tion can protect spawning grounds, are either by insisting 

 (a) on the general use of large meshes which will allow the 

 escape of spawn and fry ; or (b) on the prohibition of beam- 

 trawls where spawn may be disturbed or fry destroyed ; or 

 (c) on close times which may enable spawn and fry to fully 

 develop. It has been before shown that nearly all such 

 restrictions have been removed owing to the futility of all 

 endeavours to successfully enforce them. The enactment 

 of 1868, which prohibits the use of oyster-dredges in the 

 English Channel between the i6th of June and the 3ist of 

 August, must be regarded as affording indirectly a close 

 time for that particular class of fish known as oysters, and 

 not as protecting the spawning ground of fish generally. 



Spawning places, fr&m being within the territorial seas, 

 and from possessing more definable limits than spawning 

 grounds, might more readily become the successful subject 

 of legislation. With the exception of those spawning 

 places, principally in estuaries, which have been converted 

 into spawning beds, they have not been more directly 

 protected than the first class. The unenforced close time 

 for herrings below Ardnamurchan in the territorial seas 

 would come nearest as an example of protection, except 

 that by this restriction immature fish are more protected 

 than spawn. The suggested abolition of the early spring 

 fishing of the East Coast would also protect large fry rather 

 than spawn, whilst its operation would extend to the spawn- 

 ing grounds of the deep sea as well as to the spawning 



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