FISH AND FISHERIES. 161 
do so when they can.* The bays and creeks of every harbour and the 
still waters of every lake and river swarm, under natural conditions, 
with the young of these fish in all stages of development. The fishing- 
net in use among our fishermen—a seine of almost unlimited length, 
and having in the centre a mesh almost small enough to catch shrimps— 
has long been a most destructive implement to these young fish; and 
the constant harassing of the flats and beaches by “stalling” and the 
ordinary hauling net, has resulted not only in driving away the full-roed 
fish from their favourite haunts on the shallows into deep water, where 
the spawn is often shed under compulsion, and of course is rarely 
hatched, but also in something like extermination of the young of all the 
best kinds of our net-fish. 
Our largest supplies of fish come from inlets, and not from open sea 
fishing as in Europe and America. In these truly antipodean divergen- 
cies from the conditions obtaining in other couneries lies the justification 
of our recent legislation, "We must protect the spawning fish and their 
young fry in the inlets, if we desire to prevent the absolute extinction 
of the best of our food fishes. 
The Fisheries Act, 1881, is, without doubt, the first formal attempt at 
comprehensive legislation based on the principle of protecting the natural 
supplies of fish (including oysters, lobsters, and prawns under that term), 
and of regulating and controlling their capture. The administrative 
authority, subject to the customary executive control, under which the 
new system is to be worked, is a body of five Commissioners appointed 
by the Governor in Council, whose term of office is five years, and whose 
jurisdiction extends over the entire territory. The fisheries on the sea- 
board are distributed into three divisions—the Home, the Northern, and 
the Southern fisheries ; in one or other of which divisions every marine 
fishery, whether for fish, oysters, lobsters, or prawns, will be con- 
tained. The regular supervision of these fisheries will be the duty of 
inspectors and assistant inspectors; and, in addition to the regular 
staff, certain Government officials are, by the Act, created mspectors 
ex officio. The inspectors and assistant inspectors are required to report 
to the Commissioners, in detail, at least once in every month, or oftener 
if directed, as to the state of the fisheries included within their respec- 
tive divisions. The most extensive powers of framing regulations on all 
matters of detail are vested in the Governor in Council. The character 
and importance of this feature in the new system have already been 
adverted to. 
* It is not perhaps correct to say that the schnapper spawns in inlets as a rule, 
for there is evidence of the spawn of this fish having been found on the school 
grounds at sea. It is, however, certain that the young fry of the schnapper resort 
to the inlets at a very early stage of development; indeed, every inlet on our 
coast seems to be the natural asylum of the young of all our best food fishes. 
