App. E. Nature's balance. 295 



from the people a large per-centage of the food in the 

 waters. Properly to appreciate the effect of this order, 

 it is only necessary to observe how large a fish can escape 

 through a mesh 4 inches in circumference, and how many 

 sorts of fish there are that are seldom or never large 

 enough to be caught in such meshes, and how numerous 

 those sorts of fish are. 



76. The ultimate effect on the fisheries would pro- 

 bably be still more unfortunate. The smaller sorts of 

 fish having immunity from netting must disproportionate- 

 ly increase on the larger netted sorts. Nature has ar- 

 ranged that the larger predatory fish shall balance the 

 smaller, and thus maintain due proportions; but if one 

 sort is netted by man, and the other sort has immunity, 

 the balance is disturbed, and the larg- 

 er fish are no longer able to maintain 

 their position. It is true that the predatory sorts of fish 

 are not few in number; but their numbers must none the 

 Jess have been calculated by nature with reference to the 

 number and prolificacy of the smaller sorts of fish. But 

 however well calculated they may be, to keep the latter 

 within due bounds, they must cease to be able to do so 

 when their relative position is as altered as it must be, 

 by netting the larger fish and not netting the smaller. 

 The balance is disturbed by the netting being thrown in- 

 to one scale only. The mischief of the balance being 

 disturbed lies in the fact of much of the insect life in 

 the waters being the common sustenance of both large 

 and small sorts of fish. If the latter disproportionately 



