372 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
trunks of soles at from £5 to £10, and plaice at from 15s. to 21s. per 
trunk, haddocks from 12s. to 16s., and all other kinds of fish have been 
proportionately high. 
u To what cause can we assign these high prices ? Simply that the 
shortness of the supply of fish is out of all proportion to what it was 
for vessels twenty or twenty-five years back. If it were not so, we 
should find it bear strongly in favor of the purchaser, but with the large 
numbers of vessels of the finest class, and every means man can use for 
the capture of fish, we have found the decrease in the catches has had 
such an effect on the advance in prices that the smack owner of to-day, 
in many cases, is quite unable to live by his industry ; his vessel and 
gear, instead of being a source of profit, are a burden upon his means. 
For the past few years I fear there are but few who have cleared their 
way, particularly trawlers. Not only in the price is the difference to 
be noticed, but in the size at the period of which I am speaking; twenty- 
five years ago the fish sent to the various markets of the kingdom 
were of a proper size, but such is not now the case. At the present 
time a very large proportion of the fish sent for sale to the various mar- 
kets are but little more than small brood and fry, and ought not to be 
captured. This is not only the case of one particular description, but 
is applicable to every description of fish taken with either the trawl, 
drift, or seine, and other nets I have before named. Take, for instance, 
the small plaice and haddocks from several parts ; likewise let us look 
at the small immature fish sent for sale from all parts of the coast. The 
sole, which has acquired the designation among the buyers of ‘ slips’ 
and 1 tongues,’ these tongues vary from 5 to 9 inches in length (and it 
must be borne in mind that I am speaking of the appearance of such 
fish in our markets not as infrequent but as of daily occurrence), there 
are of these small immature fish as many in one box as would fill four 
to six boxes, at least, if they were allowed to grow twelve months longer. 
These small fish frequently fill only half or two-thirds of a box, and are 
covered over with a few middle and large-sized fish. No person will 
for a moment contend that such small immature fish are fitted for the 
food of mankind. Why is it that these small fry are caught and the 
food of our increasing population destroyed? 
u I will here mention some of the principal fishing grounds, and I can 
say most emphatically that many of them are depopulated to such an 
extent that very few will pay a trawler to work them ; others are be- 
coming in a like state as rapidly as possible. There is not one of the 
fishing grounds I will here name have the fish upon them there were a 
few years back — Eye Bay, the Diamond Eidge and Varne, the Falls, 
Inner and Outer Gabbard, the Flats, Smith’s Knoll, the Lemon, Shoals 
of the Hurry, Winterton Eidge, North Northeast Hole, Well Bank, 
Black Bank, Surat Bank, Botany Gut, Silver Pits, Southwest Pit, North- 
west Pit, Clay Deep, Southwest Flat, West Shoal, Dogger, Swash, 
Dogger Bank, East Bough, Inner Ground and Off Ground, Outer and 
