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by means of artificial hatching. The available statistics also do not permit any conclu- 

 sions of the kind and we believe ourselves justified, consequently, in coming to the 

 conclusion, that so far no proof is forthcoming for the increase of a local stock of fish 

 by means of artifical hatching of salt-water fishes. 



The Committee, however, make no recommendation that experiments on this subject 

 should be discontinued, but on the contrary, considering the importance as well as the 

 difficulty of the subject, they believe that further investigation in suitable localities is to 

 be desired. 



5. We shall now take up the important question of the protection of the early 

 bottom stages. 



The investigations have brought us clear evidence on the regions of distribution of 

 the earliest bottom stages of the economically most important species. As we have seen, 

 they are different and characteristic for the separate species. Thus, for example, the 

 young haddock do not occur in the littoral region, where the first bottom stages of the 

 cod, coalfish and whiting are found. Between the regions of these last three species 

 however there are also differences, which as it would carry us too far we will not discuss 

 again here. 



It appears from the investigations on the distribution of the earliest bottom stages, that 

 the cod, coalfish and whiting grow up during their first year of life for the most part 

 outside the region where the large deep-sea fisheries are carried on. The latter cannot 

 therefore exercise any harmful influence on the youngest stages of these 3 species. 

 Whether the fishery as a whole injures these stages can only be decided by special 

 investigations on the coastal fisheries of the different countries. Such coastal investiga- 

 tions have been made both earlier and in recent years and have shown among other 

 things, that the fishery with small trawls for the shrimp species which live in shallow 

 water, also injures to a certain extent the young fish of the whiting and cod in the 

 shallow coastal waters. It cannot be said, however, that the investigations so far published 

 have given a complete answer to the question. 



In contrast to these three species, the haddock from its first bottom stages onwards 

 occurs almost exclusively where the trawl fishery can be carried on. And as the largest 

 quantities live just where the marketable haddock are caught, the trawl also takes as 

 many small haddock as its size of mesh permits. 



The same thing applies also to the somewhat older stages of the cod and whiting, 

 since both these species in most waters leave the littoral region as soon as they have 

 passed the first year. 



On the other hand, the coalfish mostly leads a littoral or pelagic existence after its 

 first year. In consequence, it is only the largest sizes that are caught by the trawl 

 fisheries in any quantities worth mentioning. 



If now we wish to understand the influence of the fisheries on these grow- 

 ing and older stages, we must first of all consider the picture given us by the de- 

 scriptions at various times of the state of the fisheries. 



Until a few years ago the information given by the commercial statistics on the 

 quantities of fish landed was the only means available of forming any idea of the stock 



