XV11 



be remembered, especially valuable. The berries are in great 

 demand for sauce and for garnish for fish and salad. We do not 

 for one moment think that the views of professed cooks ought to 

 influence legislation, or that our recommendations ought to be 

 affected by the supposed requirements of the dinner table ; but it 

 seems imuracticable to maKe anv legislation on the subject, first, 

 because it is not desirable to deprive the public ot a large amount 

 of valuable food, and the fisherman of a considerable portion of 

 his profits ; and, second, because the prohibition of the sale of 

 berried lobsters would lead to the removal of the berries. We 

 recommend, therefore, the institution of a gauge as the only 

 remedy universally applicable for the improvement of cur lobster 

 fisheries. 



We are also of opinion that a gauge should be adopted for Gauge for 

 crabs. But, on this point, we are met with a preliminary crabs - 

 difficulty. In the west of England the crabs are all large, and 

 a 5-inch gauge, or in some cases a 6-inch gauge, is required.* On 

 the east coast, on the contrary, the crabs are very small, and a 

 gauge of 4 inches, 4J, or 4J inches is recommended to us. The 

 east coast fishermen conceive that the whole of England should 

 be open to the sale of these small crabs. But this recommenda- 

 tion we are unable to adopt. In our judgment the proper 

 solution of the difficulty is to enact that in the six eastern 

 counties, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincoln, Norfolk, 

 and Suffolk, no crab should be sold less than four and a quarter 

 inches across the back, and that in the whole of the rest of the 

 country no crab should be sold under five inches. The only 

 danger from the institution of two gauges lies in the circumstance 

 that the small crabs might be sent from Devonshire and sold in 

 Yorkshire. But there is in reality no very great fear of this result ; 

 the small crabs do not pay to carry long distances, and it will not 

 pay therefore, as a general rule, to send them from the south to 

 the east coast of England. The only place outside the eastern 

 counties where the five-inch gauge will, so far as we know, be 

 objected to is Selsea, and it is of course possible to get over the 

 difficulty by sanctioning the sale of small crabs as well as small 

 lobsters within the county of Sussex. There is a good deal to be 

 said, from the Selsea point of view, for this arrangement. We 

 are unable to endorse it ourselves, because we believe the Selsea 

 crabs to be the young of a large crab, and not a small kind of 

 crab like those on the east coast of England. The crab fishery 

 at Selsea is moreover admittedly declining, and it requires there- 

 fore strong measures to ensure its recovery. We therefore recom- 

 mend that the 5-inch gauge shall apply to Selsea. 



There are two other methods b} T which the crab fishery may Berried crabs, 

 be improved. Though the berried lobster is the most valuable of 



The gauge of course applies from side to side of the crab, and not from head to tail. 



