lo THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



the estimated produce of the Scotch, Irish, and English 

 salmon fisheries, it will be seen that the gross value of the 

 British fisheries must be fixed at some ;^ 9, 300,000, or say 

 from ;^9,ooo,ooo to ;;^ 10,000,000 a year. It will be shown 

 later on that other figures, derived from independent 

 sources, go a long way towards confirming the accuracy of 

 this estimate. 



The fish which are caught in the British seas may be 

 divided, for the purposes of this argument, into two classes : 

 I. Bottom fish, or fish which live at or near the bottom of 

 the sea. 2. Floating fish, or fish which swim at or near the 

 surface of the water. The former class comprises {a) flat fish, 

 such as turbot, brill, halibut, sole, plaice, and others ; and {b) 

 round fish, as they are called in contradistinction to flat fish, 

 such as cod, haddock, and ling. The most important fish 

 in the latter class are the clupeidcB (herrings, pilchards, 

 sprats) and mackerel. It will be readily understood that 

 fish which live at or near the bottom of the sea must be 

 caught by engines different from those employed for the 

 capture of fish swimming at or near the surface of the 

 water. As a matter of fact the fish in the first class are 

 caught mainly either by the trawl-net or by lines ; while 

 fish in the latter class are taken chiefly in drift-nets and 

 seine nets. It may, perhaps, be desirable, before proceeding 

 further with the narrative, to describe very briefly these 

 several modes of fishing. 



The hook and line, which is still extensively used, is one 

 of the most ancient modes of fishing in the world. " Canst 

 thou draw out Leviathan with a hook } " so commences a 

 well-known passage in Job ; while in Homer men fish with 

 hooks, both in the Odyssey and in the Iliad, though in both 

 poems the hooks are made of horn. Line fishing, however, 

 as it is now practised differs widely from the art which 



