144 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONEE OF FISH AND FISHEEIES. 



all fisli were migratory, and the reason usually assigned for unsuccessful 

 fishing was that the fish had removed to some other place. Thus the 

 fact of a particular colony having been fished up was in some degree 

 hidden, chiefly from ignorance of the habits of the animal. This migra- 

 tory instinct, so far as our x)rincipal sea-fish are concerned, is purely 

 mythioal. The rediscovery of the Rockall cod-bank must tend to dissi- 

 pate these old-fashioned suppositious of our naturalists. All fish are 

 local, from the sahnon to the sprat, and each kind has its own abiding- 

 place. The salmon keeps unfailingly to its own stream 5 the oyster to 

 its owu bank ; the lobster to its particular rock; and the herring to its 

 own bay. Fishermen are beginning now to understand this, and can 

 tell the locality to which a particular fish belongs, from the uiarks upon 

 it. A Tay salmon differs from a Tweed one, and Norway lobsters can be 

 readily distinguished from those brought from The Orkneys. Then, again, 

 the tine haddocks caught in the bay of Dublin (lifter much from those 

 taken in the Frith of Forth, while Lochfyne herrings and Caithness her- 

 rings have each distinct peculiarities. 



Our great farm, the sea, is free to all — too free; there is no seed or 

 manure to provide, and no rent to pay. Every adventurer who can pro- 

 cure a boat may go out and spoliate the shoals; he has no care for the 

 growth or preservation of animals which he has been taught to think 

 inexhaustible. In one sense it is of no consequence to a fisherman that he 

 catches codlings instead of cod; whatever size his fish may be, they yield 

 him what he fishes for — money. What if all the herrings he captures 

 be crowded with spawn? What it they be virgin fish, that have never 

 added a quota to the general stock f That is all as nothing to the fish- 

 erman as long as they bring him mouey. It is the same iu all fisheries. 

 Our free, unregulated fisheries are, in my humble o])inion, a thorough 

 mistake. If a fisherman, say with a capital of £500 in boats, nets, &c., 

 had invested the same amount of money in a breediug-farui, iiow would 

 he act? Would he not earn his living and increase his capital by allow- 

 ing his animals to breed ? and he would certaiidy never cut down oats 

 or wheat in a green state. 



EXTEAOT FROM THE LONDON FIELD, 1871. 



The Americans, like ourselves, have begun to find that fisheries will 

 die out if the fish are hindered from spawning, and are taken at all times 

 and of all sizes. Incited thereto, perhaps, by our examide, and by the 

 movejuent which has taken place in Canada in respect to the fislieries, 

 the Americans have begun to look rather sharply into the condition of 

 their own rivers. We have received various reports from the United 

 States of the proceedings which have been and are being taken in ref- 

 erence to their fislieries. Last year an inquiry was held respecting 

 those of Massachusetts, at the instance of certain petitioners; but the 

 inquiry failed, as it was stated by the committee that there was no 

 sufficient cause shown for enacting any special measures. When a fail- 

 ure of this kind hapj)ens with us, we generally know on whose shoulders 

 to put it; the o})j)osition has been too strong, and the perpetrators of 

 the mischief, whatever it may be, have made sufficieut interest to keep 

 things in statu quo. We do not say that this is the case over in Massa- 

 chusetts. Fortunately, however, the exami)le set by that State has not 

 been followed, for Connecticut has come to a ditlerent conclusion, and 



