372 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the size and with this the weight of fish landed. The 

 author contends that there are already sufficient eggs and 

 fry in the seas, and that it is not useful to attempt to add 

 more. In this country the view has generally been that 

 the decline in the fishery can be remedied by increasing 

 the quantity of eggs or fry in the nurseries, either by 

 increasing the number of spawning fish by the imposition 

 of a minimum size limit or by artificial incubation, or by 

 protecting the very young fishes on the nursery grounds. 

 In the Irish Sea the nursery is also a shrimping ground, 

 and the only means of attaining the latter object is by 

 interference with the shrimp trawl fishery, for the results 

 of experimental shrimp trawling which we have quoted 

 above sufficiently demonstrate that enormous destruction 

 of Plaice fry necessarily accompanies shrimp trawling in 

 most places where it is carried on. Various attempts have 

 been made by the Lancashire Sea Fisheries Committee to 

 obtain powers to legislate in this direction, and the area 

 known as Blackpool Closed Ground is as yet the only fish- 

 ing ground where shrimp trawling is forbidden in the 

 interests of the young Plaice and soles which are reared 

 there. The amount of destruction of young Plaice which 

 was due to shrimp trawling on that area will be seen from 

 a consideration of the figures we have quoted above. 



The shrimping ground at the mouth of the river 

 Mersey is an area on which shrimp trawling is extensively 

 practised,* and where as we have seen great numbers of 

 young Plaice unfortunately congregate. Experimental 

 hauls with a shrimp trawl have been made for many years 

 by the officers of the committee on a portion of this area, 

 which the Committee recently unsuccessfully attempted 

 to close against trawling during July, August and 



* See Lane. Sea Fish. Lab. Report for 1900, p. 39, 1901, for a short 

 account of this fishing ground. 



