DUBLIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETT. Ill 



Eutty also mentions that in his day the hermit crahs {Paguridce) 

 were eaten, and held in some esteem. 



This paper has abeady run much further than originally intended, 

 but cannot conclude without a few general remarks about our local 

 fisheries. There can be no doubt that formerly these were much more 

 lucrative than at present, and that of late years the supplies have fallen 

 oif, and it may be profitable to consider the cause. 



The first of these, without doubt, is too close fishing. Unfortu- 

 nately, the period of the year when these delicacies are in season is also 

 that at which hand-line fishing is in vogue ; hence a ready market is ob- 

 tained for individuals which ought rightly to be thrown back again into 

 the sea to grow. Unfortunately, also, those which carry the spawn — 

 or coral, as it is called — are considered the greatest delicacies ; and 

 hence we are burning the candle at both ends, destroying the young and 

 destroying the ova. Then, again, the number of competitors on the 

 fishing grounds is much increased ; hence large individuals have be- 

 come scarce, and the fisherman is obliged, in self-defence, to reim- 

 burse himself the cost of his bait, time, and tackle, by vending crabs 

 which formerly were thrown back into the sea. This can be easily un- 

 derstood, when I mention that I have personally known a fisherman to 

 obtain only four shillings' worth of crabs in return for an outlay of over 

 ten shillings for bait. How this is to be met I do not see. Legisla- 

 tive interference with the fisheries has always defeated itself, partly 

 through popular prejudice, and partly through arbitrary restrictions, 

 which have in too many cases converted the natural active guardians of 

 the fish into their destroyers, or at least into passive witnesses of their 

 destruction by others. Another cause, doubtless, has been their in- 

 creased consumption, through the opening of new markets, &c., which 

 has brought about the very thing noted before — too close fishing ; from 

 which, I may remark, we are not the only sufi'erers, as several of the 

 English and American grounds have been abandoned from this cause. 

 Another cause which may be noted in the case of the Dublin fisheries 

 arises from the changes which the advances of civilization have 

 caused in many of the feeding grounds : numerous houses and terraces, 

 built in the vicinity of the sea, pouring in gallons of filthy and delete- 

 rious sewage per hour, causes the destruction of the food on which the 

 animals feed, if not their own, and drives them from their haunts. I 

 have been watching this agency at work in a locality not far from my 

 own residence, where the establishment of a large laundry, with sewers 

 running into the sea, has, even within the past three years, caused the 

 nearly total disappearance of some species of Crustacea, molluscs, and 

 actinife, formerly abundant, and much diminished the number of others. 

 Any one who has dredged Scotman's Bay, at the back of the east pier, 

 must be cognizant of the mischief which may be caused by sewage. 

 Here, what was formerly a sandy bottom, with numerous living tenants 

 (I speak of a distance of even some miles from shore), is now converted 

 into a series of cinder banks, and beds of fetid sandy mud, nearly des- 

 titute of any kind of life. While we keep up our present absurd—I 



