85 
continue to prey upon the smaller. They are liable, moreover, to be 
caught all the year by man, and especially when congregated 
together for feeding and for spawning. The herring is, at least 
during its spawning migration, exposed to a great deal of destruc- 
tion by fish as well as by man ; but when it retires after its visit of 
a few weeks to the shallower waters it manages at all events to avoid 
being caught by man. It has already, then, a natural protection 
which the other forms do not enjoy. 
Protection — The Fisherman. — The white fishing being nowadays 
practically in the hands of the trawler, at least in our district, the 
duty of the line fisherman is not easy to define in this respect. But 
the trawl fisherman could do a great deal to keep down waste by 
avoiding grounds where a great proportion of the fish is small and 
immature, and by artificially fertilizing the ova from ripe fishes 
during the spawning season, and returning the fertilised ova to the 
water. The in-shore fisherman has still in his hands the crab and 
lobster fishing. This fishing is threatened by the decline in the line 
fishing forcing more and more men into the pot fishing and for 
longer periods. It behoves every fisherman, then, to think of the 
future. He ought not to wait for a bye-law to make him put back 
the “ berried hen.” lie should do so as a matter of duty, and if he 
is persuaded that at any season a great destruction of unsaleable 
crabs takes place, he ought not to fish for crabs during that season. 
Protection — The Nation. — The first duty of the nation is the 
collection of adequate and reliable statistics, that we may learn what 
fish are caught by the different methods of fishing. The Govern- 
ment has done all that it has the power to do to reserve a portion 
of the white fishing for the in-shore fishermen, that is, it has given 
its sanction to every committee desiring to stop trawling within the 
three-mile limit ; and though we now recognise that the three-mile 
limit is an anomaly so far as affording protection to the spawn 
and even to the fishes, the Government is of course at present 
powerless to extend it. The difficulties of regulating the fisheries 
by Act of Parliament and Bye-law are sufficiently recognised, but it 
is obviously necessary to protect the fisherman when his interests 
are threatened by foreign fishermen, and one class of fishermen 
against another sometimes. Such protection as the law can give 
would lie given all the more readily and effectually if the fisherman 
would trouble himself by observation, reading, and instruction, to 
* The life-histories were given in much fuller detail. 
