XI 



fishery is decaying. Where it is exposed to the sea, as at 

 the Lizard and the Land's End, or at some distance from the 

 shore, as at Gorran, near Mevagissey, there is no clear proof 

 of any decrease whatever. The whole of the Cornish evidence 

 may, in fact, be summed up in the sentence that the fisheries 

 in bays require protection, but that the large fisheries off head- 

 lands or in the deep water need no protection from the Legis- 

 lature. 



The conditions of Devonshire in some respects resemble those 4. Devonshire, 

 of Cornwall. The finest crabs in the world are caught off the 

 Start Point, and we had the opportunity of examining witnesses 

 belonging to Beeson Sands, Hall Sands, Prawle, Hope, Wembury, 

 and Plymouth, whose evidence discloses the condition of the 

 fishery all round this headland.- " There is no lack of fish" at 

 Hall Sands. " The crabs have not fallen off " at Beeson Sands. 

 " There are as many crabs now as there were 35 years ago " at 

 Hope. " The fishery is in good condition " at Wembury. The 

 only contradiction to this universal testimony was given at 

 Prawle and Plymouth. At Prawle there appears to be an 

 undoubted decrease in the number of crabs ; but the fishery at 

 Prawle, though on the extreme end of the promontory, is a very 

 small one, extending only half a mile to the east and half a mile 

 to the west of the point. It appears, again, from the evidence at 

 Plymouth, that the crabs immediately outside the breakwater are 

 diminishing in numbers. But this evidence does not militate 

 against our conclusion that exposed fisheries of large areas require 

 little or no protection, The fishermen who gave us this 

 evidence spoke of the ground within three miles of Plymouth 

 breakwater, and this ground is only so exposed in certain 

 winds. There has been a greater increase of fishing upon it than 

 almost in any other place we have visited. The fishermen, 

 moreover, complain that it is partially destroyed by the refuse 

 from the Vitriol Works at Plymouth which is carried in 

 barges out to sea and tipped into the water outside the break- 

 water. This evidence, of course, resembles that which we 

 received at Cullercoats, and it tallies with it in one respect in a 

 very remarkable way. The fishermen at Cullercoats declared 

 that the lobsters had not suffered from the pollution so much as 

 the crabs, and they professed themselves unable to account for 

 ! the different effects of the refuse on the two fish. The fishermen 

 at Plymouth also noticed that the pollution had had a less pre- 

 judicial effect on the lobster than on the crab fishery, and they 

 accounted for the circumstance by stating that the lobster, being 

 quicker than the crab, got out of the way of the pollution. 

 Whether this explanation be correct or not, it is at least remark- 

 able that, at the two places at which our attention was drawn to 

 the consequences of pollution, the effects should have been 

 observed on the crabs and not on the lobsters. 



The conclusion which we formed in Cornwall and in the 

 neighbourhood of the Start agrees also with the evidence which 

 we received in the extreme East of Devonshire at Budleigh Sal- 



