90 JOURNAL OF MARINE ZOOLOGY AND MICROSCOPY. 



I have it on good authority that over 30 draw nets were in use in St. 

 Aubin's Bay one dark night recently, and I have myself seen net after 

 net along the hay in active operation, hauling to shore quantities of small 

 whiting, bass, and plaice, too small for useful food. 



2. Chervin fishing calls for some regulation. So far as I know, it 

 entails practically no destruction of fish fry, the contents of the net 

 being a pure gathering of Mysidce, a family of tiny shrimp-like creatures 

 of no known use as human food, fished for solely to furnish a ground- 

 bait in rod-fishing for mullet. They however constitute an important 

 food supply to many species of our local fishes. Thus whiting, mullet, 

 gurnard, young rays and other fishes are attracted inshore by the 

 abundance of these Mysidrn, and their numbers around our coast depend 

 to a certain extent upon the abundance of this food supply. A few days 

 ago I counted nine men netting for chervin in St. Aubin's Bay, and as 

 many as 30 have been known to be fishing during the same night, while 

 eighteen is an ordinary number. The majority of these men are farmers 

 and their servants to whom the discontinuance of this fishing would be 

 no special loss. To a few, probably about eight in number, such would, 

 however, be a distinct hardship — men who have worked at it as their 

 ohief source of livelihood for years. These men may therefore be said to 

 have a certain prescriptive interest, and while chervin-Hshevy should 

 eventually be prohibited, these men might be granted non-transferable 

 licences, to expire with their discontinuance of the fishing. In this way 

 the fishery would be extinguished without inflicting hardships upon 

 any one. The export of chervin should also be prohibited. 



3. Close times. Breaming has been continuously going from bad to 

 worse of late years. When these fish ( Cantharus griseus) come off our 

 coasts, their spawning period is nigh — and it is probable that the 

 continuous decrease in their numbers is due to too large a proportion of 

 the spawners being captured. Hence a close time of, say a fortnight, at 

 some period of the breaming season would be likely to effect an 

 improvement in succeeding years by permitting the escape of spawners 

 sufficiently numerous to maintain the race in undiminished numbers. 



A close time for the " red-cat " worm (Nereis) during its breeding- 

 season would be certain of adoption, while in view of the introduc- 

 tion of the cultivation of the cockle and the mussel, close times for such 

 should be instituted. 



4. The interdiction of low-water or littoral hunting for crabs, lobsters 

 and the like, over certain areas at least, would be productive of great 

 good. Thousands upon thousands of undersized crustaceans are taken 

 there, and this tends largely towards a poverty of adults in the deeper 

 water. To remedy this, the littoral should be carefully protected as a 

 nursery and feeding ground for these crustaceans. 



5. Restrictions upon the capture and sale of berried lobsters should 



