270 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



by direct legislation. Spawning-places are in one instance 

 indirectly protected by the legislation of 1881, which pro- 

 hibits the use of beam-trawls near clam-beds ; whilst 

 spawning-grounds, although they have been formerly indi- 

 rectly protected by restrictions on the size of meshes and 

 the modes of fishing, are now left, not to the protection 

 of legislation, but to the protection afforded by the com- 

 mon-sense of fishermen and the recuperative energies of 

 nature, with its ceaseless supply of fish. 



CHAPTER III. 



A NATURAL history classification of fishes does not fall 

 within an essay on Fisheiy Legislation. Mr. Buckland 

 divided fish into three classes for commercial consideration, 

 and to these three may be added a fourth. It is only 

 necessary to repeat here briefly the four classes more fully 

 spoken of elsewhere. They were : 



1. Round surface-fish, usually caught in drift-nets, such 

 as herrings and mackerel. 



2. Flat ground-fish, like soles and brill, caught in trawl- 

 nets. 



3. Round-fish, found at all depths, caught either inci- 

 dentally in trawls or drift-nets, or systematically fished for 

 with hook and line. 



4. Shell-fish and crustaceans. 



With regard to salt-water fish of the first three classes, 

 Close Time, with one exception, does not exist. This 

 exceptional Close Time, which is not enforced, lasts from 

 February ist to the 3ist of May: it relates only to the 

 territorial waters below Ardnamurchan Point, which stands 

 midway on the west coast of Scotland, to the Mull of 

 Galloway at the extreme south-west corner of Wigtown. 



