ENGLISH FISHERIES. 105 



trawlers from Whitehaven and Liverpool have fished 

 successfully in February, March, and April, on the 

 Ayrshire coast. It is quite a new thing for beam- 

 trawlers to work on that coast of Scotland; and as 

 good catches have been made there of some of the best 

 kinds of fish, it is to be hoped that Scotch fishermen 

 themselves may in time be induced to try this mode of 

 fishing, especially as we understand that the long- 

 existing prejudice against it has been much lessened. 

 Bad weather, however, is one of the difficulties to be 

 contended with on that part of the coast ; and that 

 liability will, no doubt, interfere with the extension in 

 this locality of a mode of fishing which is so profitably 

 worked on many of the coasts of England. Morecambe 

 Bay deserves some notice from its having long been 

 famous for its shrimp fishery, and the proceeds are not 

 only distributed through the manufacturing districts, 

 but are sent to the London market. The ground in 

 Morecambe Bay consists of extensive sandbanks, with 

 innumerable channels between them, and in these the 

 shrimpers work with cutter-rigged boats of about five 

 or six tons, using an ordinary beam-trawl of suitable 

 size and with a very small mesh. Twenty-five or 

 thirty quarts of shrimps are considered a fair day's 

 catch for one of these boats. Mussel fishing is also 

 successfully worked on some parts of this coast. Long 

 lines are used here in winter, and among the fish taken 

 by them at times are large numbers of dogfish. These 

 mischievous fish, the sworn enemy of fishermen on all 

 parts of our coasts, are here in some cases turned to 

 profitable account, and the fact is especially remark- 



