CHAPTER XIII 



SOME BRITISH SEA FISHES AND FISHING 



Whether the supply of fish around our coasts 



has or has not sensibly diminished, it is certain 



that herrings still exist in inexhaustible numbers. 



Providence seems to have produced them with the 



intention that whatever the inroads made upon 



them by their innumerable piscine enemies, or by 



man, their ranks should never be seriously depleted ; 



for, although their roe yields but 20,000 to 50,000 



eggs, as compared with the conger's 16,000,000 and 



the cod's 7,000,000, they are so prolific that if 



a single pair were allowed to multiph' without 



hindrance for ten years, the result would be a 



mass of fish equal in bulk to our earth. 



A faint conception of this may be gathered from 



the enormous size of the shoals. In 1877 one of 



H.M.'s cruisers met with a shoal four miles long 



and two miles wide — 5,120 acres — that would 



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