ON FOOD-FISHES. 23 



chiefly confined to a belt within a reasonable distance of land, 

 and to which a constant immigration — active or passive — takes 

 place from more distant waters. It is true that the larger 

 examples of the common species of food-fishes become fewer by 

 persistent fishing, but it cannot be said that, in the case of 

 either round or flat fishes in the majority of the areas, signs of 

 extinction are apparent. The resources of nature, as in most 

 of the invertebrates, would appear to be sufficient for recupera- 

 tion. The round fishes are a wandering race, moving hither 

 and thither in search of food or for other reasons, and thus 

 their abundance or scarcity, as tested by hook, net, and 

 trawl, is subject to remarkable variations of greater or less 

 duration. The flat fishes, again, by their submersion in the 

 sand, by their activity and by their nomad life in the earlier 

 stages have considerable aids in their preservation. It is "^K 

 probable, however, that it is mainly to the vast number of eggs 

 produced by each species, to their transparency and pelagic 

 nature, and to the existence of boundless reserve-margins of 

 the sea that the food-fishes have been enabled to resist extinc- 

 tion by natural agencies and by the various methods of fishing 

 suggested by the ingenuity of man\ Yet the hordes of dog- 

 fishes and the abundance of skate are kept up by forms which 

 have a ver}^ few large eggs of slow development, protected 

 either in the body of the parent or in a tough horny capsule. 

 The young fish enters life, therefore, at an advanced stage, and 

 escapes the dangers of minute size and great delicacy. ^ 



On the other hand, the vast numbers of the herrings spring 

 from eggs fixed in masses to various structures on the bottom. 

 That the young stages of the cod should seek the tidal margins 

 of the rocks, whereas the young stages of the haddock should 

 keep to deep water, and that the habit in each case should 

 conduce to the prevalence of the species, is another instance 

 of the marvellous prescience of nature. 



Even if, in the waters within a reasonable distance of land, 

 fishing were carried to such a degree that it would be no 

 longer profitable to pursue it, it is possible that the adjoining 



1 Enforced close-times, by storms, and in certain parts by ice have also to be 

 considered. 



