24 



man's influence on food-fishes. 



areas and the wonderful powers of increase of the few fishes 

 remaining would by-and-by people the waters as before, because 

 everything in the sea around, including the plenitude of food, 

 so nicely fitted for every stage of growth, would conduce to 

 this end. To those who are annually familiar with square 

 miles of sea (unknown as a spawning-ground) carpeted with 

 myriads of tiny young herrings like fragments of thread, the 

 not uncommon cry of "ruin of the fisheries" seems to need 

 qualification. When, further, in areas supposed to be exhausted, 



Sand-eel, a favourite food of fishes both in its adult and 

 young states. 



many adult food-fishes are found, whilst the water teems with 

 myriads of pelagic sand-eels \ flat fishes and other forms, the 

 same necessity for caution holds. 



In this group, therefore, as in the majority of the inverte- 

 brates, it is apparently beyond man's control either to reduce 

 to vanishing point or greatly to increase the yield of the open 

 sea. The larger forms of such species as the halibut, for 

 instance, may be thinned by constant attacks, but the race 

 continues as before with a resilience and pertinacity none the 

 less sure that they are often doubted and may even be denied. 

 It is a satisfactory proof of the powers of recuperation inherent 

 in the ocean that for ages the British seas, for example, have 

 withstood the almost daily tax of fishermen from both sides of 



1 The richest food of almost all fishes. 



