136 MARVELS OF FISH LIFE 
small soles, plaice, dabs, whiting and cod are destroyed 
round our shores in the shrimp trawls. Cunningham 
gives the result of one and a half hour’s haul with a 
twenty-one foot beam trawl outside the mouth of the 
Mersey, and during the capture of thirty-two quarts of 
shrimps, no fewer than 10,407 plaice, 375 dabs, 169 
whiting, 69 codling, and 12 soles were also taken. All 
these fish were small in size, and 7,000 of the plaice 
were so small as to pass through the meshes of a shrimp 
riddle. 
The injury to immature fish occurs when the 
cod-end of the trawl is hoisted out of the water; 
for then the fish are packed together in a solid 
mass, and those at the bottom are crushed beyond 
recovery by the enormous weight of fish above 
them. 
The remedy for this depletion of fish around our 
shores lies in sound international legislation, which will 
protect immature fish, and at certain seasons their 
spawning grounds. 
The “man in the street ” seldom gives a thought 
to the marine biologist, or if he does, in many instances, 
he merely thinks of him as a scientist who catches and 
examines queer creatures m the sea for a purpose 
which he cannot understand. But the whole question 
of harvesting our food supply from the sea depends 
upon the knowledge gained by the marine biologist 
concerning the life histories, migrations, food, rate of 
growth and spawning grounds of our food fishes. 
