236 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 



failures of this character have already been given in relating 

 the history of the Norwegian herring fishery." 



Mr Walpole further observes, " It seems, then, reasonable to 

 conclude that oceanic fish, or fish which do not come habitually 

 or necessarily into narrow estuaries or rivers, are incapable of 

 exhaustion by any methods which man has yet invented, or 

 seems likely to invent for their capture. It appears, moreover, 

 that temporary failures of particular fisheries must not be 

 accepted as indications of exhaustion." 



He makes sure he cannot be misunderstood thus — " man 

 may rest satisfied that, so far as the open ocean is concerned, 

 the fish which he destroys, if he abstained from destroying 

 them, would perish in other ways\" 



The Commissioners of 1878 observe, "AlP sea fish during 

 the earlier stages of their development draw in either to 

 estuaries or to the shallow waters which fringe the shore. But, 

 speaking generally, there is no reason to suppose that the 

 operations of man are making any sensible impression on the 

 number of the fry even in these places, since there is no 

 evidence that the stock of fish in the sea generally is de- 

 creasingl" 



Mr Walpole puts the matter clearly thus, when alluding to 

 Brown Goode's notion that shoals of sea-fish spawning near the 

 coasts may be decimated : — " Even assuming it were possible, I 

 doubt whether any harm would result. No one would think a 

 farmer improvident who brought one-tenth of his herd annually 

 to market. A fish reaches maturity much more rapidly than 

 an ox, and is some thousands of times more productive than a 

 cow. Why then should it be improvident for a fisherman to do 

 what no one would think a farmer improvident for doing ? In 

 short, though I doubt the possibility of decimating a shoal of 

 fish, I should regard such a course, if it were practicable, as 

 about the best use the fisherman could make of it**." 



^ Op. cit. {Official Report Fish. Exhib.) p. 138. He excepts seals and whales, 

 crustaceans (crabs and lobsters), oysters, anadromous fishes spawnmg near the 

 shore, and salmon. Fisheries Exhib. Lit. iv. p. 137. 



2 Much has been learned since. The haddock is a marked exception. 



3 Op. cit., p. 152. 

 * Op. cit., p. 153. 



