102 



The following official statement shows the small 

 extent of the fishery in the Lancashire and Western Sea 

 Fisheries District : — 



Landed at Liverpool — 



Wt. in cwts. Value in £'s. 



1906 nil nil. 



1907 3 cwts nil. 



1908 4 cwts 1 



1909 1 cwt nil. 



1910 1 cwt nil. 



1911 nil nil. 



As a matter of fact, however, the real value of the 

 fishery must be higher than is represented by these 

 figures. It is known that four to five hundred whelks 

 are landed weekly by small sailing boats, and these sell 

 at Is. to Is. 3d. per hundred. In addition to these, 

 others are apparently landed by longshore fishermen and 

 find their way with illegal-sized flat fish into some of the 

 smaller fish-shops. 



In addition to whelk-catching by means of wicker 

 pots, dredges are occasionally used; " trotting " is 

 another method adopted in the south-eastern districts of 

 England. A number of shore crabs are strung together 

 with a needle and string, so as to make a bunch. These 

 are sunk to the bottom and left for a time ; they are 

 afterwards drawn up and the whelks removed from them. 



In England, some years back, the trade in whelks 

 must have been of considerable importance, for one finds 

 that the Lynn fishery alone supplied about 1,250 tons a 

 year, for which about £10,000 was paid, and Grimsby 

 exceeded this with a value of £22,000. These figures 

 probably include Fusus antiquus (the " hard whelk "), 

 which seems to have been more prized in some markets. 



