234 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 



to be amenable to such restrictions. A species which extends 

 from the shores of Norway to those of America is probably 

 beyond the influence of such measures. Even were most ex- 

 amples, say of the haddock, removed, for the sake of argu- 

 ment, from the area of the 13-mile limit round the British 

 shores, we have yet to consider the pelagic eggs given off by 

 many of the specimens in the spring months, before and 

 during capture, other eggs swept in by currents from the 

 more distant waters, and the hordes of tiny young which 

 are beyond the reach of any mode of fishing. What perma- 

 nent influence can a three or a thirteen-mile limit round the 

 small area of the British Islands have on the almost boundless 

 ocean around, an ocean teeming with food from plants to 

 fishes, and harbouring multitudes of the very species we are 

 considering ? 



Slowly, therefore, the conclusion has been reached that 

 the closure of regions of the open sea in a country like 

 Britain presents few advantages worthy of the constant strain 

 and irritation of class against class, or of the considerable 

 annual expenditure. The capture of great numbers of small 

 fishes by either trawlers or liners is a misfortune for the 

 country, but the closure is powerless to prevent it. Yet so far 

 as history, and so far as observations at the present time go, 

 there is no ground for alarm in regard to the permanence of the 

 food-fishes. Those who have watched the swarms of young 

 soles and other flat fishes on the shrimping-grounds of the 

 Thames, that have been harassed almost daily for hundreds of 

 years, will appreciate the remarks on the permanence of our 

 fish-supply. No test, indeed, could be more decisive, and none 

 more completely answers the half-informed outcry about the 

 disappearance of the haddock from the Scottish waters. Nor 

 is the author alone in this view. 



On June 18, 1883, at the Inaugural Meeting of the Inter- 

 national Fisheries Exhibition of that year Prof Huxley, who as 

 a member of several Royal Commissions and Inspector of 

 Salmon Fisheries had large experience, after dealing with the 

 river-fisheries, summed up his address thus : — " And now arises 

 the question. Does the same reasoning apply to the sea- 



