SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE SEA FISHERIES BILL. 



69 



10 March 1904.J 



Mr. J. T. Cunningham, f.z.s. 



[Contimued. 



Lord Heneage — continued. 

 ■ passed a law on our own account ; I think that 

 would give us a stronger position. 



Lord Tiveedmotdh. 



1260. You were, I think, for about 10 years at 

 the Laboratory at Plymouth ? — Yes, about 10 



years. 



1261. About 1897 yoa left it?— I left it in 

 1897. 



1262. Since then what have you been doing ? 

 —At the end of 1896 I left. 



1263. Have you been keeping up your in- 

 terest ? — Yes. 1 have net been on the North 

 Sea very much, but I have been connected with 

 the fisheries, holding a post in Cornwall under 

 the Technical Instruction Committee for Sea 

 Fisheries. 



1264. Have you been carrying on any experi- 

 ments down there lately ? — Yes, I have carried 

 out a great number of experiments. 



1265. But you have not done anything in the 

 way of taking statistics of fisheries off the coast 

 of Cornwall ? — Not of trawl-fisheries. 



1266. What do you say would be the maximum 

 size of this large kind of plaice that you have 

 been referring to when they get full grown ; to 

 what size do they grow ! — The largest specimen 

 measured 28 inches, I think. 



1267. You would say from 25 to 27 inches 

 Y, ould probably be a ver}' fine specimen ? — Yes. 



1268. What would you put as the maximum 

 average size of a big sma ll-sized plaice ? — The 

 extreme niuximum at Plymouth is 25 inches, I 

 think, but that is veryr.(re; and at Lowestoft 

 the largest that ar 

 18 to 19 inches. 



1269. Then would you say that the average 

 big fish in the one case might be put at 25 inches, 

 and the average big fish at 18 inches in the other ? 

 — It would be rather difficult for me to say that ; 

 I would rather give with more certainty the sizes 

 of the smallest mature female fish. The smallest 

 mature female fish, at Lowestoft for instance, is 

 9 inches long ; and from tho Dogger Bank and 

 from the grounds of the North Sea, seen at 

 Grimsby. 13 inches long — a difference of 4 inches. 



1270. But though a fish arrives at maturity 

 at a certain size, it is still a young fish ; it has 

 not completed its growth ? — Yes, it grows after- 

 wards. 



1271. It grows considerably afterwards, of 

 course ? — "Yes. 



1272. Merely taking the size at which it first 

 spawns does not necessarily involve that it does 

 not grow pretty big afterwards ? — No. I think 

 the best iciea of sizes is given by the analysis of 

 sample boxes that I have taken at Lowestoft 

 and Grimsby, in which I have tabulated the 

 •sizes at each inch — so many fish at such and 

 such a size. 



Chairman. 



1273. Will you hand those tables in for the 

 use of the Committee ? — Yes. {Handing in 

 the same.) [Vide Appendix.] 



Lord Tweedmouth. 



1274. Then, ot course, there are all these 

 ^questions of food and temperature and what 



gencrallv lauded arc from 



Lord Tweedmouth — continued. 



not to be considered ; under those different 

 conditions the fish would grow very differently ? 

 — So far as we know the conditions in the 

 different regions are not varying from year to 

 year ; they have probably been the same for 

 the last 100 years. 



1275. But I mean that therefore the varia- 

 tions of a particular ground would account for 

 the difference in the size of the fish without 

 necessarily involving a difference in the 

 species ? — It is not a question of species at all ; 

 it does not matter really for fishery questions 

 what we call them. We only look at the 

 matter empirically by the differences that there 

 are; it is not necessary to know what the 

 causes of them are. 



1276. But you think that a uniform limit of 

 10 inches would be fair to apply to both sorts 

 of plaice ? — Yes, I think it would be possible. 



1277. You do not think that the catches that 

 are made up mostly of what you call the small 

 race of plaice, would be unfairly restricted by a 

 10-inch limit ? — They would lose a certain 

 percentage, but not a large percentage of their 

 fish. In one box I measured it is only four fish 

 out of nearly 200. The 10-inch limit would not 

 do too much harm to the Lowestoft sailing 

 smacks on the ground where they were fish-'ng 

 — at least when I was with them ; but it would 

 impose a healthful restriction on the in-shore 

 shrimp man who takes soles of 7 or 8 inches 

 long. 



1278. Do not you think he would make a 

 loud complaint if he \\-as stopped ? — He generally 

 does spea'it more loudly than anybody else, but 

 I think he ought to be restricted. 



1279. From your experience of trawling, 

 would you say that about 25 per cent, of these 

 undersized fish represent the total amount that 

 would live when returned to the sea ? — Yes, on 

 Ihe average. Sometimes they might all be 

 dead, and sometimes more than half might lie 

 alive. It depends upon the length of time tliuy 

 have been on deck, and the treatment they have 

 received since they left tho ti'awl. 



1280. And also the ground ?— Yes. Occa- 

 sionally when taken out of the net the iiat 

 fishes would be alive and kicking. I have 

 sometimes seen them after an hour on deck all 

 flaccid and dead, and thrown overboard dead. 



1281. Fi'om your experience are you inclined 

 to say that the English fisheries are going back '( 

 — I think there is no doubt that the grounds 

 which have been fished a long time are much 

 less productive now than they used to be. On 

 the other hand, we have every year, almost, an 

 extension of the area over which the fishing is 

 conducted, not only north and south, but also 

 into deeper v,'ater. Within the last 10 years the 

 fishing has been extended from a limit, say, of 

 40 or 50 fathoms to more than 100 fathoms in 

 depth alone, and that gives many square miles 

 of area. 



1 282. Then should you attribute such diminu- 

 tion as you have observed to the operation of 

 man ? — Yes ; I think undoubtedly on such 

 grounds as those in the North Sea the diminu- 

 tion in the supply, especially of flat fish, is to be 

 traced entirely to the excessive trawling ; and J 

 think it the trawling were to stop, the population 



of 



