SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. Ill 



of sprats apparently sets in from the South, sometimes as 

 early as September. The fish become very abundant off 

 Morecambe towards the end of November, and remain in 

 quantity until the end of January, after which the sprats 

 become smaller and the fishery diminishes in value. During 

 the height of the fishery fully 70 tons of fish were landed 

 per day, and the money value of this catch to the fishermen 

 was over £300. A ton of sprats contains on an average 130,000 

 fish. In a day's fishing, therefore, 9 millions of sprats may 

 be captured, and this goes on day after day without making 

 any appreciable difference to the abundance of the fish. A full 

 account of this recent fishery and the method of using the 

 stow-net was given by Mr. Andrew Scott in our Report for 1915. 

 The question naturally occurs in connection with this and 

 other similar fisheries elsewhere, whether it would not be 

 possible and desirable in the interests of the food supply, to 

 establish a salting and curing industry to convert the temporary 

 superabundance of the fresh perishable fish into a more per- 

 manent and highly nutritious article of diet. 



Another interesting and very profitable local fishery, 

 which has arisen or been resuscitated quite recently in the 

 Irish Sea, is the summer herring fishery off the south end of 

 the Isle of Man. In former days, say about forty years ago, 

 there seems to have been a regular summer herring fishery 

 prosecuted chiefly by the fleets from Peel and Port St. Mary, 

 but for the last thirty years or so (since about 1883) the fishery 

 has failed — according to some because of the absence of the 

 shoals of herring, and according to others because the men 

 had found more profitable employment on shore in connection 

 with summer visitors to the Island. Probably also the with- 

 drawal of facilities for getting the catch to market rapidly 

 by means of Liverpool tug-boats had an effect. It may be 

 doubted whether there was ever any great change in the 

 distribution and abundance of the herrings, and it has often 



