202 THE ZOOLOGIST, 



the Dutch, the enterprising successors of the Hanseatic leaguers, 

 whose fleet of over two thousand "busses" swept the North Sea 

 from Shetland to the Dogger, as well as searched the inshore 

 waters all along the English coasts — to the chagrin of the native 

 fishermen in the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury. It was not, indeed, till the middle of the seventeenth century 

 that the supremacy of the Dutch was overthrown, and that British 

 fishermen took the foremost place in sea-fishing. 



Throughout all this period the horizon of the sea-fisheries was 

 often as cloudy as now, and occasionally even more so, for once 

 in the thirteenth century armed Flemish fishermen attacked the 

 unarmed English boats, and killed more than a thousand of their 

 crews. Eegulations as to close-times, meshes of nets, and small 

 or immature fishes were frequently made, showing the anxiety of 

 the legislature as to the safety of the sea-fisheries. Even in 

 Parliament, more than three hundred years ago, it was said that 

 " in divers places they fed swine and dogs on the fry and spawn 

 of fishes, and otherwise, lamentable and horrible to be reported, 

 destroy the same — to the great hindrance and decay of the 

 Commonwealth." 



Since Britain attained supremacy in the sea-fisheries ever- 

 recurring fears as to their decline have been conspicuous. Now 

 it was the destruction of small Turbot on the sandy shores that 

 aroused attention, for London as early as the seventeenth cen- 

 tury needed eighty thousand Turbot per annum. Again, it was 

 the incursions of French fishermen on the inshore grounds — 

 especially after the peace following Waterloo —that caused the 

 native fishermen to petition Parliament to stop what they con- 

 sidered the ruin of the British industry. 



Ever the same distrust of the permanence of the supplies of 

 the sea-fishes, and the intolerance of other methods of fishing 

 than that thought to be legitimate by the local men, have charac- 

 terized the chequered history of the subject. Yet throughout all 

 these centuries the plenitude of the sea-fishes was beyond dis- 

 pute. Moreover, successive Governments, whether representing 

 the wishes of the people or not — both in England and Scotland 

 — have always taken an exceptionally favourable view of the 

 daring and hardy toilers of the sea, since, amongst other things, 

 their ranks furnished the finest recruits for the Navy. Inquiries 



