APPENDIX K: KYLE _ 44 _ 



the decrease of fish are of very ancient standing, and though these theories and the 

 grounds on which they are based have changed their form and character in different 

 generations and centuries, they have one and all been belied by the persistence and even 

 increase of the fisheries'. 



The increased quantities of new and less valuable species, which have been brought 

 to market within recent years, have also been taken to indicate a decrease in the quan- 

 tities of the more valuable kinds. The order of things has certainly changed from half a 

 century ago, when the haddock and plaice were regarded as worthless species and not 

 brought to market from the offshore fishing grounds. Yet the condition of things on 

 land has also changed, and the demand for fish has increased more than a hundred-fold. 

 The appearance on the market of the present day, of species regarded as worthless but 

 ten years ago, is explainable in the same way. The removal of the inferior species from 

 the sea is probably a gain to the valuable kinds, and the fishermen would regard it as 

 the greatest blessing, if some means were devised for also removing the great pests of 

 fishing, dog-fish, starfish, jelly-fish, sponges and the like. 



The severe fishing which one species undergoes may also be of benefit to others 

 on which it feeds, just as the removal of larger individuals may be of benefit to the 

 smaller of the same species. Thus, the large takes by the trawlers, especially of haddock, 

 possibly also of cod, may account in part for the extreme abundance of the herring 

 within recent years. 



The conception of balance or equilibrium may thus be employed in many useful 

 ways, when regarding the fisheries from a practical standpoint. It need hardly be said, 

 that the same conception is of more than mere theoretical importance when applied to 

 the comprehension of the biology of the fishes, their growth, and their relations to one 

 another and to the surrounding conditions. Fishes or living things in general, are not 

 like natural products such as gold or silver, which when removed from the earth cannot 

 be replaced. There is an instance on record of a fish having been exterminated apparently, 

 and yet returning after many years in its earlier abundance 2. The great fertility of fishes 

 enables them to populate the seas in numbers so great, that if counterbalancing forces 

 were not at work, one species alone, even the least fertile, would within a year or two 

 supply more fish for the markets than all the species together do at present. 



The peculiar way in which the fertility on the one hand and the counterbalancing 

 forces on the other, work to maintain the various species in a condition of equilibrium, 

 furnishes the main scientific problems of the fisheries. It is remarkable, for example, that 

 the sole, with more than twice and the turbot, with more than ten times the fertility of the 

 plaice, should yet be represented in the fishermens's catches by but a small percentage of 

 the quantities of the latter. The plaice indeed, seems the most favoured flat fish within the 

 regions considered. Again, of all the chief food-fishes, the herring has by far the lowest 

 reproductive power and yet, the quantities brought to market of this species alone exceed 

 those of all others together. It is in the contemplation of these broad problems, that one 

 is obliged to remember, that man's influence on the population of the sea is but one of 



' Mc. Intosh W. C; "The Resources of the Sea" 1899 p. 224 et seq.; and Holdsworth, E. W. H., 

 Deep sea Fishing and Fishing Boats, 1874, p. 266 et seq. 



2 The American tile-fish: see, "The Fisheries etc. of the United States", U. S. Com. of Fish and 

 Fisheries, 1884, p. 360. Report U. S. Com. of Fish and Fisheries, 1900, p. XXIII. 



