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ishes THE
Laqca^hiPe ^ea Y\$\zM^
Jl JSoctura
Delivered in the Chadwick Museum, Bolton,
May 24TH, 1899.
BY
Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers; Fellow of the Linnsean Society;
Fellow of Royal Microscopical Society ; President of
the Bolton Microscopical Society;
For Fifteen Years Honorary Naturalist Director of the Southport Aquarium.
Manchester :
Abel IIeywood and Son, 56 and 58 Oldham Street.
London :
Slmpkin, Marshall, and Co., Limited.
1899.
TO MY OLD AND VALUED FRIEND,
ABRAHAM BURROWS, Esq.,
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER,
AND LATE ALDERMAN OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL OF LANCASHIRE,
THIS LITTLE PAMPHLET IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
PARTLY ON ACCOUNT OF OUR VERY LONG FRIENDSHIP, BUT
ESPECIALLY IN MEMORY OF THE EFFORTS HE MADE
EIGHT OR TEN YEARS SINCE TO OBTAIN A FAIR HEARING
FOR THE FACTS AND A FAIR CONSIDERATION
FOR THE CONCLUSIONS EMBODIED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
*'0f the making of many books there is no end." It is
customary, and in many cases very advisable, that anyone
who rushes into print should give the public his reasons for
so doing. In my case I do so. Firstly, because a strong
wish has been expressed that I should publish the lecture I
gave under the auspices of the Bolton Corporation at the
Chadwick Museum, and I promised to do so, but it seemed
to me it would be well, even while retaining the lecture
form, to add from my many notes a considerable number of
facts suppressed during the lecture, owing to want of time,
which I think go far to prove my contentions. I was
further induced to do this by the newspaper reports, in
which the lecture was cut down to suit space. Proofs were
eliminated, and merely the assertions printed. Secondly,
because during the time I conducted the Southport Aqua-
rium I had opportunities which are not likely soon to occur
again of making many interesting experiments. Those
relating to fish culture are, I venture to think, of some
importance. They are at present recorded in all sorts of
places — Blue Books, Land and Water, local papers, &c., and
I think it well to bring the most important into one collec-
tion. Whatever may be thought of my conclusions, I leave
these observations as my contribution to the great fishery
question.
In regard to the scientific staff mentioned, I trust it will
be understood that my remarks and strictures are entirely
made in their Pickwickian or Fishery sense, and with-
out personality. I have not the honour of knowing any
of the gentlemen personally, and have no doubt they
are, as most Englishmen are, very estimable men in private
life, when not mounted on their scientific hobby-horse and
riding the poor fishermen to death ; but in their public
capacity I think they furnish one additional proof of the
wisdom of our great poet when he exclaims, " Proud man
drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's
most assured, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
as make the angels weep."
Since delivering this lecture my attention has been called
by Mr. Midgely, Curator of the Chadwick Museum, Bolton,
to Professor Mcintosh's book on the subject, just published,
and entitled, " The Resources of the Sea." Professor
Mcintosh is a far more able man than I am. He is a
recognised authority on these questions, and has devoted his
life to scientific studies, while I, busily occupied in my own
onerous profession as an engineer, have only been able to
devote my leisure hours to the subject. I earnestly hope
Vll.
that those responsible for the present state of things will
carefully read and consider the Professor's volume, and
especially the concluding pages, in which he sums up the
case.
It is hard to fight against what have now become vested
interests, but justice and common sense must prevail, and in
time the present advisers of the County Council will be glad
for the public to forget the cruelty and hardship they have
inflicted on a hard-working and deserving class by their
legislation in the dark.
Moovfield, Bolton.
THE LANCASHIRE SEA FISHERIES,
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It may strike many people as rather curious that an
engineer in an inland town should be asked to open a
Fisheries Exhibition — the two things at first sight seeming
somewhat incongruous. However, when they invited me,
the Corporation did so on the ground that they believed I
was the only man in the district who knew anything about
our fisheries. This is not quite correct ; but it certainly is
to be regretted that more people do not give attention to
the subject, and are not aware of the harm that is being
done with the intention of increasing our fish supply.
I am at first sight rather in an invidious position to-
night, because I feel very strongly indeed, with the fisher-
men along the Lancashire coast, that they are being harassed
and ill-treated by the group of scientists who have obtained
possession of the ears of the County Council, and are re-
gulating the fisheries according to their ideas.
When I was asked to open the Exhibition, I explained
my views to- the authorities, and told them they put me in
rather a peculiar position, for it was customary at these ex-
hibitions for the persons who opened them to praise every-
thing. They pointed out to me, however, that this case was
somewhat different, because the Committee who have sent
down the Exhibition have sent it to illustrate what they are
doing, how they are spending the pubhc money (now
amounting to a very large sum, about ^"3,000 per annum),
and to justify their action in treating the fishermen in the
manner in which they are doing ; and therefore it was per-
fectly fair, as they were paid by the people, that the people
should criticise their action, if they could.
I think before I go any further I should tell you what
particular chances have fallen in my way to render me
capable of forming an opinion on this question. From being
a lad (I should say for quite 40 years), this subject has had
for me a most fascinating interest. I was a born fisher-
man, a hereditary fisherman, I think ; but catching a great
quantity of fish never had anything like the attraction for
me that the study of the habits of fish and the wonderful
problems, both of sea and fresh water, had, and I have
always made it a subject of keen study. In 1875, when
the Southport Aquarium was started, about a fortnight
before it was opened, I was asked to join the Board of
Directors, and to take charge of the Aquarium, as none of
the directors had studied the question of fish culture. I
agreed to do so, on condition that I should not be expected
to do anything else, or to serve on any other committee.
Before the end of the fortnight we succeeded in opening
the Aquarium with our tanks in a beautiful condition ; 800
fishes were in them, nearly 3,000 anemones (some of these
are still living), and other specimens. The whole of these
I caught or collected myself at Fleetwood.
After that time, for fifteen years, I had the sole and
entire management of the Southport Aquarium, and not
only that, but I caught more than three-fourths of all the
fish they ever possessed, and during that time I was
intimately associated with the fishermen along our coast,
and formed a very high opinion of them.
We had to solve the question of catching the fish,
feeding, and keeping them. The work done attracted the
attention of Mr, Frank Buckland, Sir Spencer Walpole,
Inspectors of Sea Fisheries, and Mr. Archibald Young,
Inspector of Salmon Fisheries in Scotland. From almost
the beginning to the end of the time I was engaged in the
work I enjoyed their friendship, and I constantly gave them
such information as I possessed on the question of fisheries.
I made Mr. Buckland most of the microscopic observations
for his Oyster Fisheries Bill, and I was asked again and
again by Mr. Buckland and Sir Spencer Walpole to join
them in their enquiries, and to assist them by my local
knowledge and my knowledge of the fishermen. I was,
therefore, often with them.
The work also brought me in contact with Dr. Day, ex-
Inspector of Fisheries in India, and until his death we were
close friends.
Again, I had another source of information as to what
was being done in America, for I had the pleasure of
numbering Professor Baird, the head of the U.S. Fishery-
Commission, among my personal friends, and was in
constant communication with him until his premature death.
I merely mention these facts to point out the oppor-
tunities I have had of learning something about the
conditions of our Sea Fisheries.
You will agree with me that in a great affair of this sort it
is very foolish to pass laws before you know what you are
doing. When this Sea Fisheries Bill was first proposed
I thought it would probably be a very good thing, as
greater opportunities of obtainirig information would be
afforded.
The County Council having got the powers I was shocked
to find that, the idea that seemed to possess them was not
that information should be sought, but that something must
be done to stop some people from doing something ; the ques-
tion was to find out what that something was, but something
it must be. Many years ago this same question was
brought up. The question of the exhaustion of our Sea
Fisheries is practically as old as the hills, in spite of the
fact that the yield increases every year. There is I believe
a clause in Magna Charta prohibiting certain nets being
used because certain sea fishes were falling off.
What I object to in the management of the Lancashire
Sea Fisheries is that there has been no honest attempt made
to place before the public and before the members of the
County Council the full bearing of the subject. I was utterly
disgusted in the earHer stages when I saw the officials
taking out fish salesmen and landsmen. People who cer-
tainly had no knowledge whatever (for even a fish salesman
as such knows nothing of fishery questions beyond the
market value of different species), were taken out to sea and
were shown the effect of a trawl net in bringing up a large
number of small fish, and were dismissed with the idea that
this was the normal state of things in our Fisheries, and
that in a very few years there would not be a fish in the sea.
Now, sir, there are three great laws that regulate the
supply of fish in water, both fresh water and sea w^ater, and
those three laws are easily capable of demonstration. The
first is enormous power of reproduction. The female cod,
when they come on the spawning grounds in winter or early
spring deposit on an average nine million eggs apiece ; the
conger eel I note from my own observation deposits from four-
teen to fifteen million eggs, and all food fishes are enormously
prolific, though the actual number of eggs differs in different
species. If the eggs laid along the Lancashire coast only,
in one year, were all to hatch and all to grow to adult size,
you could not sail a ship across to Ireland. With this enor-
mous reproduction, therefore, there comes in necessarily the
second great law, requiring enormous destruction to keep
the thing at a normal limit.
The third law is a very curious one, and I don't think
it is well known. We might call it one of retardation of
development. I never heard anybody attach proper im-
portance to it. You will probably, some of you who are
fishermen, have heard that when a lake or reservoir is made
on a small river it is discovered that there are much larger
fish in the reservoir than there were in. the river originally.
If you were to turn a large number of calves into a field,
and there was not sufficient food and room for them they
would die. In the same way, if you were to set a lot of
seeds in the garden, and you set them so close that there
was not room for them they also would die. It is not so
with fishes, or with most marine and fresh water animals,
probably with all. I have tried many sorts, and this special
and most curious law affects them all. If the environment
is such that there is not room to grow, or if there is
not sufficient food, the creatures may remain healthy, but
they will be small, they will never grow to their full
proportions until the conditions are favourable ; the con-
sequence is you will have a large stock of tiny fish. I
was puzzled for many years to understand what the meaning
of this could be, until it struck me that the explanation was
probably this, that with such enormous destruction being
required to go on, possibly the destruction might sometime
be rather overdone, and a whole year's brood might be swept
off. The vacancy thus created would be immediately
filled by those little forms whose rate of growth had been
retarded ; they would rush in and occupy the vacant
space.
Apart, however, from any great convulsion sw^eeping
away a whole year's brood, something of this kind does
actually take place. Nature acts just as an intelligent
gardener or farmer does. Some crops, such as cabbages,
celery, &c., which bear removal, it is found most economical
to grow in seed-beds and to transplant. By this means
ground can be used for another crop, and as that is cleared,
well-grow^n specimens of the next can be planted out, and
so save the time of the larger fields or beds. This phe-
nomenon has a most important bearing upon the fishery
question, for Nature says in effect to the fisherman, " Work
away, take all you can make any use of, you do not need to
wait for another year's crop. I have vast reserves of young
well-grown fish ready to plant out. The more you take, the
more I will supply."
Nature in the sea has one great advantage. The
agriculturist must time his seed-beds so that the young
plants will be exactly ready when w^anted, but in the sea
Nature can hold her stock at any size she likes until they
are required, and thus in her operations, though there is
enormous destruction, there is no waste.
Part of this great fact you can demonstrate for your-
selves. If you will take common water snails, put a few of
them in an aquarium, and allow them to spawn there, you
will have at the end of twelve months, provided all goes
right, hundreds of tiny snails; but if you take half-a-dozen
of these out soon after being hatched and put them in another
aquarium, giving them plenty of room, you will find at the
end of twelve months that they are full-grown specimens.
Anyone who has kept fish in a parlour aquarium must have
noticed that the fish do not grow. In the Southport
Aquarium we were able to observe this matter very fully.
We obtained a quantity of young turbot about the size of
the palm of the hand, and placed a number of them in the
small table tanks, and a further number in the hall tanks,
these latter tanks being about i oft. square by 6ft. deep. At
the end of a year I was struck with the fact that those we had
in the table tanks were only the size they were when caught,
while those in the hall tanks weighed 3 or 41b. I had some
of these removed and put in the big tank 30ft. long. At
the end of another year those in the table and hall tanks
were still about the same size; they had made very little
growth; but those in the big tank ranged from 8 to lolb.
each. At the end of another year those in the table and
hall tanks were still stationary, while those in the large
tank ranged from 14 to i81b. After this, though those in
the small tanks lived some years, they did not make any
appreciable growth ; they had obviously reached the limit
their circumstances permitted. Sir S. Walpole and Mr.
Archibald Young were greatly interested in this experiment
when in Southport about some salmon experiments I had
been making.
When first the Southport Aquarium was opened, I caught
at Fleetwood, on the Little Ford Bank, near the Wyre
Lighthouse, a number of conger eels ; none of these weighed
more than 2 to 31b. ; if there was an odd 4-pounder it was
an exception. Some of these I had put in the small tanks,
and some in the large tanks. Those m the hall tanks grew
and attained a weight of 6 or ylb. ; those in the big tank,
where they had plenty of room, went ahead at a most
surprising rate. At the end of three-and-a-half years one
of them died. That fish turned the scales at 6glb. I
forwarded it at once to Mr. Buckland, and he had a cast
made from it, which is now in the South Kensington
Museum. Another died at the end of five years. Un-
fortunately I was not in Southport at the time, but I went
the next day to the Aquarium. It had been thrown in a
corner of the hot engine-room for me to see, and being a
soft watery fish it would lose much weight under these
circumstances in twenty-four hours. Still, the creature
turned the scales at gglb. This fish is also cast, and is in
the South Kensington Museum. Others grew to enormous
sizes, but these two are the only ones of which I have a
record of the exact weights.
I tried similar experiments with cod, and with exactly
the same results, but I could not grow them to more than
8 to lolb., a weight which they attained in three years, and
this only in the large tanks. In the smaller ones they grew
very little. They had evidently reached the maximum
growth possible in their circumstances. Various flat fish
gave similar results, but captivity affected them more. I
also tried the grey mullet. I could never succeed in raising
them to more than from -|lb, to lib. weight. They
seemed more restless, and to require a larger area in which
to develop. I, however, retarded the growth of some
by keeping them in a little tank until eight years old, when
they were only the size of minnows.
Now, sir, to deal with the experiments made by our
scientists under direction of the Sea Fisheries Committee of
the County Council, and upon which they have founded
their legislation. I do not deny for a moment that
they look at first sight, and have been represented to
the County Council as very shocking, but I think I
can show that first appearances by no means prove the
case, and that these advisers have presented an utterly
false argument, though founded on their own experi-
ments.
II
Suppose you were to bring someone from the country
and take him into one of our mills and into the cellars
below, and show him how the yarns were being damped,
he might go away thinking us a most immoral lot, and if he
were a parson he would preach most violent sermons against
us, as has in fact been done by a very eminent minister of
religion in Manchester ; he would probably advise penal
legislation. We know perfectly well that yarns must be
conditioned, and that it is as much part of the process of
producing them as spinning. If we were to get a Cockney
from the centre of London, and take him out to a farm, and
show him the farmer thrashing his wheat and sending the
bulk of it to the mill instead of saving it and sowing it, and
led him to believe that every grain so treated was a plant
destroyed, what would he think about it ? You could per-
suade him that it was a monstrous and extravagant proceed-
ing. But misrepresentation of this kind is infinitely worse
in the sea. Wheat produces say loo fold, but the seed,
as we may call it, of fishes is to be calculated by a million
fold in many cases, and in nearly all our food fishes is enor-
mous, so that only a mere fraction of the young can ever
find room in which to grow. This illustration was used by
the Sea Fisheries Commissioners in 1878.
In reference to the position of the fishermen, what I
complain bitterly of in our sea fisheries scientists is the con-
tinual condemnation of the men, and utter misrepresentation
of their proceedings. If you were to read the report of the
Sea Fisheries authorities, you would think the men were a
set of fiends ; that they were simply destroying the contents
of the sea for their own will and pleasure, whereas the
truth is that, in the first place the destruction is infinitely
less than it is represented as being; in the second
place, compared with the other destructive forces, the
destruction made by fishermen is inappreciable, though
alone it might appear to be considerable, and in the
third place, legislation does not affect the preservation
that it is represented to do, and its cruelty to the fisher-
men cannot be justified. There is nothing else like it in
English law.
When these bye-law^s were passed (to demonstrate to
you that they were passed by people who knew nothing at
all about what they were doing), it was decided that the
Superintendent should have a steamer in order to " protect
the fisheries." I was at Fleetwood soon after, and happened
to be standing on the beach chatting witn one of the fisher-
men, when a pretty little steamer similar to those on
Windermere, but such a thing as I never saw on the open
sea, came steaming up the channel with a big ensign flying.
I asked, " What in the world is that ?" The fisherman
turned round and said, " That is the Lancashire Sea
Fisheries Steamer." I said, "That ?" "Yes." "You do not
mean to say that is their idea of a steamer for investigating
13
or protecting the sea fisheries ?" " Yes, sir," he said,
" that is their idea."
As he knew the sort of weather I was in the habit of
going out in, I said, " How would it stand our work ?" He
laughed as he replied, " You would knock it to pieces in a
week. But they do not intend to go out your sort of
weather."
They did after a while find out their mistake, and sold
the steamer. They then bought one which can face a bit
of weather, and so at a great monetary loss to the county
remedied one mistake which need never have been made.
I do not give them great credit for this, for the information
was knocked into them by old ocean, who showed them that
their own lives were in danger, and however the fishermen
may fare, we must all see it would be a serious matter if a
Professor and Sea Fisheries Superintendent " ran some
risk of being drowned." They have never shown any
inclination to acknowledge that their bye-laws were made
on the same kind of information that induced them to buy
their toy steamer, but in the same ignorance in which they
bought their steamer their regulations were made and are
enforced to-day.
We will consider first fisheries proper and shrimping
(cockling and musseling I will deal with later). I will also
take the scientists' reports as far as the experiments are con-
cerned, and assume that these were correct. But I will try
to put the deductions to be drawn from their experiments
into the light of what actually takes place, arid the lessons
I think we may gather from them. I speak from the
experience gathered in hundreds of expeditions with the
fishermen in their own boats, using their own tackle, and
using it as they ordinarily do, not as used on the "John
Fell," the C.C. Fisheries Steamer.
I am obliged for a text to go back to Professor Hard-
man's report for 1894, those for 1895-96-97 being absolutely
barren of any fact really adding to our knowledge, but con-
sisting of learned descriptions of the structure of certain
small crustaceans, and a series of beautiful sketches of their
anatomy, and various articles on scientific (principally
microscopic) subjects ; they are in fact articles on these
subjects published at the expense of the county ; if they
were reports of research endowed as such, we should have
no cause of complaint, but as the report of men harassing
the fishermen as they are doing, they are both useless and
misleading. On turning to the 1894 report we find on page
49 a typical description of experiments and deductions.
We give the report in full.
" The statistics of hauls taken during the past year
from the steamer show once more, if any showing is still
needed, that that destructive engine, the shrimp trawl,
brings up along with a miserably small number of
shrimps an astonishingly large number of young food
fishes. On November 2nd, off the Ribble estuary, with
15
five quarts of shrimps were taken over 5.000 undersized
food fishes. On the same date, off Blackpool, with one
and-a-quarter quarts of shrimps were 10,000 fish. On
October 24th, in Heysham Lake, with two quarts of
shrimps were 4,000 plaice, about four inches long, and so
on. Of course, it is satisfactory to know that there are
so many young fish on the ground, but it is deplorable
that for the sake of a quart or two of shrimps several
thousands of young fish should run some risk of being
sacrificed.
BAR SHANK NET EXPERIMENTS.
These experiments were carried out by Mr. Dawson
for the purpose of determining whether the destruction
of small fish caught while shrimping could be decreased
without affecting the number of shrimps taken. In
carrying out the experiments an ordinary shank net and
a shrimp trawl were worked over the same ground, along
with a modified shank net having a bar fixed to the
frame about three inches off the bottam, to which bar
the lower part of the net is attached, the three being
worked simultaneously, so that the experiments might
have a fair trial. As stated in the introduction, these
experiments have, so far, supported Mr. Dawson's idea
as to the fish caught in this net being fewer in number
than those caught either by the ordinary shank net or
the shrimp trawl, but it would perhaps be better that
the experiments should be carried on for a further period
before any definite opinion is expressed on this matter."
The statistics given show enormously in favour of the
shank as against the trawl.
i6
Now, sir, I think any person not acquainted with the sub-
ject, to whom this report was presented, would assume this
to be the normal state of things in shrimping, and that this
was a fair representation of what took place, and that the
shrimping industry was a miserable business. We may also
conclude that we are to understand that Mr. Dawson made
the wonderful discovery that a shank net is much less
destructive than a trawl. I say nothing about Mr. Dawson's
improved shank. The report admits that the experiments
which apparently showed a slight advantage over the
ordinary shank net were not conclusive, and if they
were experiments in fair or moderate weather on a
steamer, they are not much guide to results that would
be obtained in sailing craft, where the slightest complication
may make a net useless, and where it is as much as ever
the men can do to handle the boat and nets.
In regard to the shank net and these assumed discoveries,
would it not have been well if Mr. Herdman had pkiced the
whole truth before the committee and told them that the
shank trawl was invented (I believe before Mr. Dawson was
born) by the fishermen in order to reduce the intolerable
nuisance of catching small fish ; and that its effect was well
known before County Councils and Sea Fisheries Committees
were thought of. I myself explained the action of it, and
the reason why it was used, when practicable, to the Com-
mission who made the enquiry in 1S78, and my e^•idence
17
and the facts, were embodied in their report to ParUament,
which is now before me. Unfortunately, however, the
shank net can only be worked in certain localities, owing to
the nature of the sea bottom, and in other localities there is
no resource but the trawl net.
Shrmipers will not use a trawl when a shank will do. I
cannot give you a better proof of this than that when I
wanted to get small fish for the Aquarium, and w^ished to
use a trawl on grounds where a shank could be used,
I had to hire the boat, &c., by the day, whereas if I
was content to take such fish as the shank nets got, I
could go out as I liked, the men taking the shrimps. The
reason assigned was that we should catch too many small
fish to pay. If Mr. Dawson could invent something still
better, it would be such a boon to the shrimpers that they
•would, I think, almost forgive him for the injuries they
' suffer from now.
Now, as to the results of hauls, the general impression
from this one-sided report must be that shrimp-fishing is a
miserable, petty business, carried on at a ruinous cost to
■ other fisheries. Mr. Dawson does not tell the Committee
that shrimping employs far more men, and brings in far
more money to the fishermen and their families than the
deep-sea fisheries off the Lancashire coast, and that, there-
* fore, it is an industry not lightly to be interfered with. But
serious as this omission is,- it is trifling compared with the
gross misrepresentation of facts in actual fishing which we
are left to infer from the report. No shrimper would, or
could, fish under such circumstances as are reported. I
have, scores of times, been with them when such a haul
was made, and the consequence has invariably been that
they gave up fishing and moved off to try their luck else-
where, where young fish were not so thick on the ground,
this not from any sentimental kindness to the young fish,
but as a pure matter of business. The shrimps would be
worth about fourpence per quart to the fisherman, so in
such a case as is reported, for the hard work involved in a
long trawl, as well as an hour or more spent in picking the
few shrimps from a mass of fish, they would receive
fivepence, and out of this wear and tear of boat, sails, and
net would have to be paid.
If we have shewn what these experiments do not prove,
let us see what they do prove. We must in justice to these
gentlemen assume that their hauls were in their opinion
fair examples of the shrimp fishing. If so, we have genuine
cause for alarm, for they show such an enormous abundance
of young fish forms as to make it certain that our shrimo-
ing population must starve, for under such conditions as are
reported they cannot possibly live themselves, much less
support wives and famiUes. If the reports are not strictly
fair, but if they still represent in some degree, though ex-
aggerated, the present state of things, the shrimp fishing is
19
in a very parlous condition. If the reported examples are
not fair examples they destroy all our faith in the authori-
ties. The truth is that such hauls are made, and unfor-
tunately for the shrimpeJTS, are too often made to be
pleasant, but they are by no means fair or ordinary examples,
though they occur often enough to prove that young fish
exist in numbers many times more than can possibly
develop. These young fish of two to four inches long are
those which have escaped the dangers of babyhood. They
are not the miserable little larval forms which Professor
Herdman dignifies by the title of " fry," and which he pro-
poses at enormous cost to hatch and distribute. " Carrying
coals to Newcastle " is sober common sense compared with
such a proceeding as this. Further, these gentlemen have
the grace to admit that in spite of the alleged destructive-t
ness of shrimping, it was satisfactory to find such enormous
quantities of young fish on the grounds, that even these are
not sure of being destroyed, only " they run some risk."
They must be aware that in the normal course of things
nearly all the young fish go overboard as soon as the nets
are cleared, and that flat fish are little the worse. Those
which may die are not lost. It merely means that other
forms of life below water get a meal a little easier than they
otherwise would do. To me and to the fishermen it is of
infinitely greater importance that the wives and children of
the men should not starve by the action of the Fisheries
20
Committee than that a few small fishes should " run some
risk " of dying a day or two earlier than they would
have done m the ordinary course of nature.
Having, I think, fairly dealt with the shrimp question,
let us look for a minute or two at the restriction in size of
mesh in trawi nets.
First of all, we must understand that in a trawl net it is
to the fisherman's interest to use as large a mesh as he can
profitably do, for the larger the mesh the easier the draft is
through the water, the better the trawl keeps the bottom,
and, owing to the greater speed, the more fish are caught.
But this is qualified by the necessity of having a mesh small
enough to keep all the fish worth having. To shew the
necessity of interfering with shrewd, practical men who
know their business, the committee show two jars, one sup-
posed to illustrate the average size of fish taken with seven-
inch mesh, the other with four and a-half inch mesh, which
would escape through the larger, and, as they say, " remain
to grow to adult age." If the fish in the smaller jar are a
fair average, in the gross some would be larger, some
smaller* Many of these are big enough to cook, and are
far more delicious than larger specimens.
But I see with surprise that about half the bulk are
young whiting. Surely the scientists must know that not
one of these could possibly wriggle through the net and live.
While the smaller mesh retains them to be made use of, the
21
larger kills them and leaves them for the crabs and shrimps.
How do I know this ? By repeated experiments and re-
peated disappointments. Salmon, sea perch (bass), grey
mullet, and similar hard scaled fishes with scales firmly
attached, can go through a net and can stand some pressure,
but these members of the cod family are so tender that the
slightest pressure is fatal. When collecting specimens, I
always took all I possibly could with hook and line, to pre-
vent any crushing, and such as we were obliged to obtain
by trawling were got by making special drags, only keeping
the net down ten minutes and then lifting it. Even with
this care, impracticable in fishins: for a living, the mortality
was enormous. The experiments tried on board the steamer
of putting them in tanks for two or three hours, and because
they were alive at the end of that time assuming they were
uninjured, are useless. So temporarily tenacious of life are
they that I always took them alive to the Aquarium, but
considered myself very lucky if five per cent, lived a week.
The bulk of them were dead next morning, while of hook-
and-line caught fish I rarely lost five per cent.
One species of cod, the " Power," [Gadns Minutus)
would not stand the handling needful to take them off the
hook. These are too small a member of the cod family to
be much used for eating, but they are exceedingly beautiful
in an aquarium, far more so than any other of the family.
At last I took a pair of forceps to sea with me, and lifting
22
the line out of the water when I caught a fish, I grasped the
lower lip of the fish with the foreceps while I disengaged the
hook. ' I then dropped the fish into the water of the
cairrier. When the fish arrived at the Aquarium the carrier
was lowered into a tank and the fish allowed to swim out.
Then and only then we succeeded in getting the fish to live.
Such facts as these, I think, clearly show that the restrictions
of the Board effect no good, but do actual harm, so far as
round fish are concerned.
Now about the soles and plaice. These fish are so
tenacious of life that when collecting for the Aquarium we
could, when pressed for room in our carriers, carry the fish
in a box, simply covering them with a little seaweed.
Without any other care I have had them alive a day on the
boat.
But what takes place on a fishing boat in actual fishing
for a living, not when playing on board a steamer ? As soon
as the net is hauled the catch is looked over. What the
fishermen can eat or make money of is picked out, the rest
go overboard. So inveterate is this custom, that it is often
difficult to get the men to wait until one can pick out
subjects of scientific interest. Over and over again I have
had to stop them, while they fidgetted about with shovel and
broom. Any one who has asked them to bring in some of
their rubbish to examine will know how difficult it is to
induce them to preserve it. If you, sir, had been on board
23
fishing boats as much as I have, you would have seen the
reason for immediately getting rid of all slippery substances
from the deck. When th'e wind blows a bit, it is as much
as you can do to keep on your feet, and handle the boats
and nets with the deck clean.
Considering these facts, and the strong practical reasons
named above against using too smalla mesh, why should a
group of scientists presume to dictate to shrewd business
men how to carry on their business, and why should they be
armed with such monstrous powers ? What is the' effect of
this absurd legislation ? Take their own statements in
regard to the Blackpool closed ground.
" When it is considered that from 70 to 90 boats
used to be employed shrimping on these grounds (Black-
pool Closed Grounds), each boat making from four to
five hauls on each tide, it will not be wondered that the
Committee closed them, nor can it be denied that the
closing must be of immense benefit in the protection of
undersized fish."
What about the wives and children of the poor fisher-
men ? Two men at least would be employed on each boat.
Could any possible benefit accruing to the deep sea fishers
compensate for the depriving all these men of their living ?
But this is considered to be a trifle when put into the balance
against '' some risk " of immature -fishes being killed.
Let us consider for a minute what this really means.
Supposing the boats earned on an average only £'>^ per
24;
week, that is not much more than £i a week each for the men
after allowing for wear and tear, depreciation, &c., and as
fishing is a highly-skilled labour, I think everyone will
admit that this very much understates the earnings. But
this gives us ;f 12,480 per annum as the value of the harvest
of which the 80 boats have been arbitrarily deprived (I take
80 as midway between 70 and 90), and the country, ot
course, has lost food to this value, and for no purpose what-
ever except that large fish may have a grand time feeding
on what, together with themselves, rightfully belongs to
the fishermen. The harvest, however, of which the men
have been deprived would have been mostly shrimps, and
these employ the fishermen's families in preparing them
for the market, in shelling the small ones for potting, &c.,
and in retailing the large ones. During these processes
the shrimps nearly double in value. It appears, therefore,
at a reasonable estimate, on Professor Herdman's own
statistics, that this enclosed area yielded the fishermen
and their families an income of nearly ;^25,ooo per annum,
^o that by his beneficent oversight they have, by this
time, been robbed of some /"i 50,000.
No wonder Dutch shrimps are sold in Southport since
this authority was established in presence of such a state-
ment as this in the report. No wonder the fishermen feel
they are cruelly and wantonly shut out from the harvest
God has^ give^n them, and that they try now and then to
25 .
snatch a bit of it. The wonder is that they are so law-
abiding. But if the present persecution continues, and
repeated prosecution and punishment for what is no
crime is maintained, the character of the men must
deteriorate.
If, in addition, we reckon the loss to the fishermen
through restriction of mesh, the heavy loss to cocklers in
their having to submit to a gauge arbitrarily imposed upon
them, when political economy has fixed one a little smaller
(the difference is not great, but one is costly to the county
and prevents the cockier earning a proper living, while
the natural limit is equally fixed, works for nothing, and
causes no irritation), we cannot, I think, avoid the
conclusion that even the heavy cost of this department is
a trifle compared with the tax levied on the fishermen. It
will be a moderate estimate to put the loss at a quarter of
a million of money since these laws were passed.
Professor Herdman's salve for all this is the breeding
and feeding of shrimps. And if he would cease prosecuting
the fishermen until he had satisfactorily accomplished it,
and provided the remedy, we should have nothing to
complain of. He suggests " as well worthy of serious
consideration " a trial of artificial shrimp culture in
enclosed areas, with a view to providing some substitute
for the present destructive method of shrimping, and pro-
poses to feed them on offal. Speaking as a naturalist with
26
some experience of feeding marine animals I assert that
this could not be done at any cost. The Professor talks
of ofFal, but though we may speak of certain animals as
scavengers, the various inhabitants of the sea are so fitted
into one another that they are mutually dependent on one
another, and for one form to feed on what is the natural
ofFal of other species is a very different thing from pitching
a heap of what we are pleased to call offal into the sea.
Marine animals are dainty feeders in their own line.
Professor Herdman's creek would soon become a filthy
abomination if offal were thrown in to feed his shrimps.
It is a costly job to find marine animals suitable food on a
small scale, when their value as exhibits is many hundred
fold what it could be as food ; on a commercial scale, and
one of such vast magnitude, it is impossible. It is really
difficult to believe that the Professor is not poking fun at
the Council. But it is similar to the many Jules Verne-like
proposals set forth solemnly in the fishery reports.
Shrimps are not found of marketable size in little creeks.
Existing as they do in myriads along our coasts, no
inhabitant of the sea seems to require more of the
invigorating influence of the mighty tides that sweep
along bur borders. In the Aquarium we found that of all
edible creatures we could keep the smallest weight of
shrimps in proportion to water, and they required a heavy
circulation to keep them healthy.
27
The Professor writes lightly and cheerily about enclos-
ing a space "with wattles," but to shut shrimps in, especially
in their early stages, the fence would have to be the finest
gauze. Has the learned Professor ever calculated what
rearing and feeding our shrimp harvest would cost? Take
the piece of ground alone which he has been instrumental in
so lightly closing off Blackpool — closed as being an insignifi-
cant matter to the fishermen. Taking the boats fishing thete
as 80 (he says 70 to 90), in order to make shrimping pay, the
boats must take at least 40 quarts each per day. At 4d.
per quart this would only leave 13s. 4d. per day to pay
two men and wear and tear of boats and nets, so I think
it a low estimate. If the boats fished five days a week for
40 weeks this would mean 640,000 quarts of shrimps from
this bit alone. How are we to enclose an area like this,
and artificially feed such a stock as to yield a crop of this
kind ? If it were possible to erect sea walls to enclose
areas sufficient to rear our shrimp crop, the revenues
of Lancashire would not pay for them, and it would take
an army of men to catch and provide food. Speaking
as an engineer, even if we were prepared to sink untold
millions in such a project it could not be done. The
tides would laugh at such utter folly, and where the
profit could come in, when Nature has provided so
bountiful a harvest for the mere taking of it, is beyond
my comprehension.
28
Having considered the size of the mesh, let us for a
. moment look at the limitation of length of trawl beam, and
width of cockle rake. To obtain any foundation to argue
from in regard to these, we must admit that trawling does
considerable harm, and that some regulations are needed.
For argument's -sake alone we will allow this, but admitting
it, and without it the laws are absurd, are we any better ?
No one will pretend that a wider trawl or wider cockle rake
does more harm than a narrower one in proportion to the
whole work it does. Therefore, if we admit the necessity
of working with a trawl or a cockle rake at all, the only
possible object of legislation is to prevent the individual
fisherman or cockier endowed by his Maker with more skill
or strength than his fellow from using the same, saying to
him in effect, " Yes, we know your Maker gave you more
strength and skill, and intended you to excel your fellows,
but He made a great mistake. Be thankful we are here to
repair the blunder." Even admitting the argument that
the harvest is limited, which we think the Fleetwood instance
named later on,-^' supported as it is by much other evidence,
proves groundless, there is no reason why a man stronger
or m,ore skilful than his neighbour should not obtain all the
advantage his strength or skill gives him. It is the most
elementary principle of political economy that he should be
allowed to do the best he can, and so stimulate his fellows
* See page 45.
29
to renewed efforts. The harvest of the land is Hmited as is
the area of land, but we never think of saying to the suc-
cessful farmer, " You must not farm more than a certain
amount of land, nor use more than a certain power of
machinery because you will get more than your share of
the harvest," but in fishery matters our legislation during the
last fifteen years is, as I have said, like nothing else in English
law. The Law of Nature, that every variety whether of
man, beast, bird, or fish has a constant tendency to revert
to an original type receives froni this a valuable illustration.
It is well known that sons of savage chieftains who have re-
ceived in Europe a civilised education often on returning to
their wild homes revert very much towards the ancient
practices of their tribes.' A savage everywhere is delighted
to clothe himself in the garb of civilisation, but he remains
a savage underneath. And so we find that a high scientific
education is after all only skin deep. Beneath all is the
savage or the mediaeval mind, which only needs opportunity
to break forth and astonish civilisation by acting on the
worst lines of mediaeval thought. This may be to some
extent explicable, as it is a well-known fact, proverbially so,
that very high scientific knowledge and the absorption of
the mind in pursuit of such ^studies, whether mathematics,
theology, natural science, or any other branch, often witf.-
draws a man from the work-a-day world, so that he becomes
unpractical.
30
But what must we say when a County Council acting
on scientific advice propose, and the most enlightened
Parliament that ever existed legislates, on these lines,
says in effect to the superior fisherman, '• We know you
are more skilled than your neighbour, we know that
Providence intended you to excel, we know that it is for
the general good that every man should do his best for him-
self, and that by this means the nation progresses. We
also know that you are a trained fisherman by your own
and hereditary knowledge. You are best fitted to succeed
in your own line. We know. your business is of vital im-
portance to the nation, and as population increases will
become more so, and it is for the good of the common-
wealth that you should succeed. But this is a fishery
question ; it is governed neither by the ordinary rules of
political economy nor yet by common sense, so if you wish
to play your part in life, wish to rise as you were intended
to do, you must abandon your base, wasteful to yourself
and the nation as such a process is, and recommence your
life in some other sphere, for if you remain in your present
calling your ambition must be limited. You can either be
a 30ft. trawler, a 13ft. shrimper, or a i2in. cockier, but
beyond these you cannot rise. If you are a cockier and
want to know how much money a cockier ought to earn, or
how many cockles are 'plenty'* for you to get, you must
♦ See page 39.
31
apply to Bailiff Wright." Providence and the laws of
pohtical economy make such a fearful mess when they tackle
fishing questions that we have put a water bailiff on to
manage this part for them. It is fortunate that in this
capacity we have such an incarnation of wisdom. The
only explanation of all this is that the subject is so obscure
that the gentlemen who compose the authority feel out of
their depth, and trust to their scientific advisers. But it is
a serious responsibility to plead this. I hope by the time I
have done to show you the misery that is being wrought,
and I am sure you will agree with me that it is not too
much to ask these gentlemen to study the subject, and not
to trust to such wildly unpractical advisers.
In the Exhibition of the Sea Fisheries Committee you
have a collection of what is supposed to be the food of
fishes. I will not weary you by dealing with them all, I
will deal with the cod as a fair sample of the whole. They
have put there two or three crabs, and a shrimp or two,
and something of that sort. It is, of course, to the interest
of their case to minimise the other destructive forces of
Nature, and magnify that of man. The}' say that is
the result of examining the contents of cod stomachs
at the Liverpool Laboratory. Very well, possibly it may
be so. They ignore the fact, well-known to all fisher-
men, that when fishes are in extreme danger, say in a
net or caught with a line, they are in the habit of
32
disgorging all the food out of their stomachs that they can.
If any of you have fished for pike you will probably have
had ample proof of this. It is a mechanical process, and, of
course, depends on the food itself whether it can be quickly
discharged. If the fish have been feeding on other fisVi
they will be easily parted with, but such food as is here
shown would be very difficult to throw up, as it is so full
of points and angles to anchor by. The stomachs, there-
fore, when examined "in a laboratory would contain such
matter only, but only a small proportion of the fish food.
But that this is a true representation of cod food I utterly
deny. All members of the cod family are enormously
destructive, and they alone, amid all the other agencies, des-
troy an amount of small fish by the side of which all that
man does is a mere trifle. Hundreds of times I have seen
this disgorging process, and, with most trifling exceptions,
the food parted with was always fish. In addition I have
' had to feed large numbers of these creatures for years,
and have done so with the greatest success, always using
fish for food. The avidity with which it was taken
from the first showed how palatable it was. Further,
no fisherman around our coasts would dream of bait-
ing with such' subjects as are shown in the bottle
in the condition shown. It does not appear to me that
these are the actual contents of the stomachs, for the
digestive process is so rapid in fishes that if they were.
33
they must show evidence of it, while these are perfectly
free from any such trace. It appears to me that they are
simply whole animals of similar species to those found. If
so, they are of no value whatever as evidence. We should
have the real contents of stomachs.
To give an actual illustration of cod feeding. The
curator of the Aquarium once reported to me that
a fisherman had brought in an enormous cod which
was the greatest scarecrow he had ever seen. It ought
to have been from 25 to 3olb. weight, but was only
about 9 or lolb., it was in such an emaciated con-
dition. I went to look at the fellow, and I found he
was suffering from a very curious thing which does
not seem to have attracted the attention of the fish-
ery scientists. When you catch fish of the cod family in
the sea they are often blind from a sort of cataract over
one or botli eyes. One day when I was long-line fishing
with Mr. Greenall's steam yacht, kindl}^ lent me for
the purpose, I took special note, and 10 per cent, of
those we caught were partly blind, while 5 per cent,
appeared totally dark. This one was quite blind. We
had just received a quantity of herrings as food for the
seals. They were not of the largest size, but were good
marketable fish bought in the ordinary way. We threw
one in. Blind or not blind, the cod recognised the presence
of food, seized and swallowed it. We tried another, and
34
aYiother, and not until he had disposed of thirteen herrings
did he cry enough. Perhaps you may say it was because
he was hungry that he took fish, but at the same time we
had in the tank a shoal of ten or twelve splendid cod,
averaging fully 2olb. weight each, and in prime condition,
on which we experimented. Shortly after we had a big
haul of small flat fish. As we did not want them m the
hall tanks, I told the men to take the fishes and pour them
into the big tank to see what would be the result with the
big cod. They recognised the presence of the flat fish
immediately ; their lethargic condition was thrown off
instantly. You could scarcely credit that they were the
same fish which had been swimming so quietly and
solemnly round the tank; they were now so full of
animation as they dashed wildly after their prey. Many
were caught before they reached the bottom, and those
that survived showed clearly by their actions that they,
too, grasped the situation, and knew well enough that
Crustacea are not by any means the main food of the cod.
They instantly covered themselves with sand and ap- '
parently disappeared. The cod, however; knew better.
They commenced to hunt for them, carefully and systemati-
cally quartering their ground as a well-trained pointer
would do, and aflbrding a beautiful illustration of the use
of the curious " beard " possessed by many members of the
cod family. By-and-bye, one of them, by means of this
35
feeler, detected one of the youngsters and put it up.
Away it went full speed, followed by one, two, or
three of the huge monsters. No greyhound fancier
ever saw a better bit of coursing as the little chap
doubled and turned with the greatest agility, while
over and over again the great lumbering cod overshot
their mark, and the little fish went to earth, only, how- '
ever, to be again routed out and hunted until not one
was left.
Perhaps when Professor Herdman's fantastic dream of
the time when we shall not hunt our sea fish, but shall feed
and rear them as we do our cattle is realised, we may see
a new sport introduced, but I fear we shall not live to enjoy
it, for as a preliminary to even beginning to study seriously
how to provide at a commercial price the millions of tons
of food that would be required (to say nothing of the
embankments to keep the fish in, which would cost more '
than the Panama Canal, if they could be built at all), our
meteorologists must first not only understand the great
laws that regulate wind and water, frost and heat, but
must be able to control them, and work the great forces of
Nature at their bidding, or all the other would be liable to
destruction in a moment.
As our meteorologists have made so little progress with
this first trifling step, it will be a long time before this
state of things is brought about.
36
So far from Crustacea in the condition shown in the
specimen bottles being the normal food of fishes, we always
kept plenty of small crabs in heavily stocked tanks to act
as scavengers and eat up any waste morsels of food that
might otherwise have decayed and polluted the tank. I
never noticed the fish touch them except when they had
cast their shells and were '' soft crabs," and only in this
condition have I ever seen a cod disgorge them.
If we turn from these fishes, foods, and meshes .to the
rest of the Exhibition, what do we find ? A common sea-
man's telescope and compass, supposed to possess some
special merit because a fishery officer uses it ; some fancy
badges worn by the fishery officers when hunting and
harassing the fishermen, and a large series of brass instru-
njents of torture for the fishermen (called gauges in the
catalogue). I think I have shown in regard to size
of mesh, and later on shall try to do in regard to size
of cockles and mussels, how Dame Nature and the laws
of political economy have provided absolute gauges
which cannot be violated by the fishermen except at
their own cost — gauges which work without cost and
without irritation, but to our scientists these forces are
hum-drum, old-fashioned, so they have applied their in-
tellects to invent something better, and we are called upon
to gaze in admiration upon these proofs of their wisdom.
It is true they differ very slightly from the others. It is
57
true also that they are enormously costly to work, and
they cause the maximum of irritation and trouble. But
still we are supposed to welcome such improvements oh
poor old Nature and political economy. In the whole
Exhibition, in return for the thousands of pounds spent
by the Fisheries Committee, there is not one solitary fact
or bit of practical information which was not well known
and recorded twenty years since. Not one solitary proof
of any good done.
You will note I speak warmly about the fishermen. I
know them. I have spent scores, nay, hundreds of days,
and often nights, alone on the sea with them, and have
have been in their confidence, and have learnt to un-
derstand them. Their occupation differentiates them
from landsmen, and a landsman has difficulty in under-
standing them, but once get over this difficulty and they
will compare very well indeed with any of our work-
ing population. I speak with deep feeling on this ques-
tion. I had a crew of four men whom I employed when
at work, and four more decent, obliging men I never had
as companions. Three of them were teetotalers, the other
a very sober man. At one swoop I lost them all. They
were all drowned at the post of duty when the
Southport and St. Annes lifeboats were wrecked. These,
sir, are the men now being hunted, prosecuted by the
score, and made into criminals for fear a few small
38
fish should run some risk of being destroyed.
The work goes on swimmingly. In the first six years
of its history, as proudly set forth by Mr. Dawson in his
report, 390 of these poor fellows were prosecuted, and
made to pay in fines and costs £^1"] 5s. Since then I
cannot discover the amount extorted from them, but in
1897 no less than sixty-two were hauled before the magis-
trates, while in 1898 the number was eighty-six. It
sickens one, and makes one despair for h^umanity when we
reflect that these are not drunkards, thieves, or rioters,
but the most independent, courageous, law-abiding work-
ing class we have, and they are so treated because they
do not recognise the right of faddists to take their wives'
and children's bread from them, when not one single fact
is in evidence fo prove that the enormous sacrifices they
have been made to suffer have done a single pennyworth
of good. " Deplorable " it is certainly, but the deplorable
part is not the part named by Professor Herdman.
To deal now with the cockle and mussel industry, for
it is hardly a fishery in the ordinary sense. At present
the cocklers around Morecambe Bay are petitioning the
Board of Trade for some relaxation of the oppressive Bye-
Laws, on the ground that they cannot make a living, and
they made a most reasonable proposal that the Com-
mittee should send a deputation to see the work, and
judge for themselves, but as reported in the Manchester
39
Guardian of May 17th, 1899, on the sole evidence of Bailiff
Wright, who asserted that the cocklers were making
plenty of money, the Sea Fisheries Committee reported to
the Board of Trade that there was no ground for their
petition. I do not know Bailiff Wright, but should
certainly infer that he is to the Lancashire Sea Fisheries
Committee what the world-famed Bumble was to the
Guardians. He evidently regards the cocklers in the
same light that worthy regarded the paupers, and is
equally astonished when *' Oliver asks for more."
Assuming that my estimate is correct, I don't blame
Bailiff Wright. Bumble was the natural product of
mistaken and bad laws administered by men out of
sympathy with the pauper, and the frame of mind of
Bailiff Wright is exactly what might be expected in the
subordinate officials from the Sea Fisheries Bye-Laws
administered by the present staff. I give the extract from
the Manchester Guardian report of the meeting —
'* The Clerk stated that a petition had been received
from the fishermen round Morecambe Bay praying for
a relaxation of the Bye-Laws with reference to the size
of mussels and cockles, as under present conditions
they could not make a living in the winter months.
Bailiff Wright, questioned by the Chairman, said the
fishermen took mussels in plenty even in the winter,
and it was resolved to inform the Board of Trade that
there was no ground for complaint."
Let us examine the question.
40
In the first place we must grasp the fact that an
enormous number of cockles exist. Every person outside
the trade whom I have asked to guess the weight of cockles
taken annually out of the sand of Morecambe Bay thought
they were going to an extreme in guessing four or five tons.
Now, sir, twenty years ago, as well as those used on the
coast or taken inland by hawkers, estimated at 25% of the
whole, the railway companies took from Morecambe Bay
alone 3,000 tons per annum of these valuable food
molluscs, and they probably take more to-day, as twenty
years since the beds were not fished to the limit of their
capacity. This does not include the Southport shore,
from which the crop is enormous.
At this time, at the request of the Commissioners of
Fisheries, I made a series of examinations and experiments
on cockles. These were not a complete life history as
there was, and still is, a missing link, but they were
sufficient for the purpose, and proved beyond all doubt the
enormous reproductive power of the cockle, and that in
consequence in order to leave room for a certain proportion
to attain full growth, an enormous destruction of immature
fish must take place. This we find is the case, and to an
extent almost beyond the power of man to estimate.
Legislation was made on the ground that cockles were
taken so small they were valueless, and returned nothing
to the cocklers. I was surprised at the weight attached
41
to these absurd statements, and I would respectfully ask
any member of the Sea Fisheries Committee to go on the
cockle beds, gather a sack of cockles, convey it to the
railway station, receive nothing for it, and then say how
long they would like to continue such an unprofitable job.
If in addition there were a wife and children clamouring
for bread at home, would not the cockier speedily find
something else to do, or " come on the Parish."
I do not deny that the cocklers, like anyone else en-
gaged in the grim struggle for existence, may occasionally
over estimate the demands of the markets, and send up too
many cockles, when naturally the finest specimens will get
the advantage and there will be a loss on the smaller, but
that it is the regular practice of cocklers to deliberately
waste their energies in undergoing the enormous labour of
getting unsaleable fish is too absurd even for argument,
though it may appear reasonable to pure scientists.
The question then resolves itself thus : is it economically
wise to take cockles a little less than at present allowed,
and so relieve the cocklers from their present trouble, and
leave economic laws, which happily work free of cost, to
settle the exact size. I think if we examine the destructive
methods of Dame Nature, we must conclude that the
cocklers may safely be left to her government.
A very able correspondent of *' Land and Water," some
twenty years since, from an examination of the contents of
42
the crops of a single species of wild duck, the Scoter, or Black
Duck, concluded that a flock numbering i,ooo of these
birds would destroy per year sixty tons of cockles. He found
twelve or fifteen cockles in each crop. Assuming that they
eat about thirty a day, which would be a very moderate cal-
culation, and allowing for their absence during the breeding
season, this would make some seven million cockles, equal to
about sixty tons. The ducks obtain them by following the
tide in, and shovelling the cockles out of the loose, sloppy
sand. I have followed the writer's observations, and con-
sider he is rather under than over the mark. However, I
have seen this one species of duck in such quantities that
i,ooo might easily have been taken away and not made
much difference.
Another bird which exists in thousands in Morecambe
Bay, the oyster catcher, is responsible for an enormous
destruction of cockles, and they form a large portion of
the food of sea gulls of many varieties. These are part of
the destructive forces at work when the tide is out. When
it is in, countless myriads of plaice and other fish are feed-
ing on them. Any such caught on the banks will be found
to be gorged with them, and from their multitude it would
be well within the limits to say that the crop that man
takes is a small quantity of the whole ; and as man is in-
cessantly taking the plaice and other destroyers, it almost
follows that to allow a fair proportion of cockles to grow to
43
a fair size he should do some of their work. This, however,
I do not beheve, as the three great laws of nature I named
at first will keep things right.
The destructive forces mentioned are, however, not all.
How do we know ? The answer is fairly simple. All
shell-fish destroyed by birds or fishes will have the shells
parted with broken to fragments. The birds either break
up large specimens before eating them, or swallow the small
ones whole, when the gizzard crushes them. Fishes crush
them with the strong teeth they possess in their throats,
but in addition to this, thousands of tons of whole shells
are washed up by the sea, the fish having been destroyed
by lower organisms such as the star-fish, whelks, &c.,
which feed upon them.
If we allowed the cockle-beds to rest, what would be
the result? Nature would either increase her destructive
powers, or the average individual growth would be re-
tarded, and though there might be found a few larger
forms which had survived the influence of the destructive
forces to some extent, there would be no appreciable
increase to compensate for the enormous loss. As well
might a farmer refuse to milk his cow for a week, so that
she would have plenty of milk at the end of the time.
The more rnan takes, the more room he leaves, and the
more will grow to full size. Of course, I am arguing from
the condition of things on these extensive banks. Laws
44
applicable to little fish-ponds, or small gardens, do not
apply in the ocean, though the sea-fishery officers do not
seem able to divest themselves of their petty ideas. If
the cocklers are left alone, no more cockles will be taken
than Nature can afford, for when it does not pay to get
them, cocklers will obey the laws of Nature and cease to
waste their time ; but I feel sure if there was demand, the
beds would yield a still larger harvest.
So much for cockles. Let us try to see how the
mussels are affected. But before dealing with them I
should like to diverge a little, for, connected with this part
of the subject is an interesting phenomenon that occurred
some years since, and one which is occurring now, which
I should like to mention. Also I think something could
be done with the mussels, but not on the Fishery Board
lines. It is protection, not prosecution, that is required
in this case.
The cry of damage to the fisheries by over-fishing is as
old as the hills, and will, I expect, alwaj's continue. For
some reasons not as yet understood, but which there is
little doubt are as much beyond the control of man as the
ocean itself, fisheries ebb and flow very much indeed ;
for this reason a mere increase or decrease of crop is no
proof of success or failure of any human laws. When-
ever the ebb comes, the cry is over-fishing, destruction of
fry, &c;, until the flood comes again, when everybody is so
45
busy, and happy that the lean 5?ears are forgotten. These
ebbs and flows generally cover a fairly long period of time,
a new generation to a great extent arises, and past history
is lost in the present.
When I was a youth very large quantities of haddock
were brought into Fleetwood by the trawlers, and they
formed a considerable portion of the catch. The quantity
gradually fell off until in the latter seventies and the early
eighties, the haddock fishing was extinct, and not a fish was
caught. This could not be ascribed to the poor shrimpers,
for I never saw or heard of a young haddock being caught
by them during all my fishing, and I am sure no quantity
could have been, or I must have heard of it. I offered
handsome rewards for any that could be obtained, as we
wanted them for the Aquarium tanks. After several years,
however, and happily about three' years before the present
officials got to work, the haddock began to re-appear. The
first year they were very small, better the second, and
they improved until they again became an important part
of the catch. They have so much increased in quantity
that so far the present year (1899) is a record. They form
at present such an important part of the deep-sea trawl
fishing from Fleetwood that, if they were not there, the
results would be very poor indeed. In size, however,
there is a little falling off this year. Whether it portends
the decay of the fishing once more I cannot say. I say it
46
was happily before the present Board was established, for
it proves that their proceedings had nothing to do with it.
In connection with the re-appearance of the haddock,
however, a fact of stupendous importance has taken place,
and a witness appeared on behalf of the poor fishermen
whose evidence I do not think even our scientists can
neglect or misinterpret. Dame Nature herself has stepped
into the arena, and with one grand operation has flatly
asserted and proved the Fishery Board's ignorance of her
law and methods. It must be remembered that these
gentlemen have obtained all the money and all their
powers on the assurance that if granted, so far as legisla-
tion on size of mesh was concerned, a very large propor-
tion of the fish permitted to escape would grow to
maturity, and the fishermen would again take them and
reap a rich reward for their enforced moderation.
The fish which these gentlemen selected as the type of
round fish, as shown in their bottles, is the whiting, and
they are perfectly correct in this, for undoubtedly of all
round fish, more small whiting are caught by the trawl
nets than any other valuable species. It therefore follows
that of round fish this species should have prospered
beyond all others, and after years of waiting the fishery
should now be established on a rich and substantial basis.
Nature has replied to that argument in her own way.
Had there been a small increase in the large whiting
47
fishing our scientists would have rejoiced exceedingly. Had
there been a small decrease they would have argued that if
their advice had not been followed things would have been
worse; butwhatistheactualstateof things? Naturalcauses,
as far, apparently, beyond our ken as infinite intelligence
itself, have quietly removed from the Irish Sea fishing
grounds, worked by the Lancashire boats from Fleetwood,
the myriads of adult whiting which occupied them when
these meddlers with what they do not understand took the
fish of the sea under their patronage. At that time the
average catch of each Fleetwood boat was reckoned in tons
per week. To-day and for two or three years back only an
odd box now and then, just enough to add to our mystifica-
tion by showing that the conditions of the sea are such
that whiting can live there. Commercially the whiting
fishery is for the present, and for some time has been,
absolutely extinct. Where are those countless myriads of
whiting gone? Not only has Nature removed them from
the grounds, but she has quietly substituted in equal
numbers another fish, the haddock, whose early life history
is more obscure than that of the whiting, and as if in
derision of the claims of the scientists, a fish that even
they cannot pretend to be influenced in any way by what
man has done.
The fishermen demand that Professor Herdman and
Mr. Dawson shall account to them-for the fruits of their
48
toil of which they have been so ruthlessly deprived. Where
are the fish taken from us ? You cannot argue about
mysterious laws of Nature. You undertook that if these
fish were released, they should be returned as a far richer
harvest. Where are they ?
But another very serious question arises to which an
answer must be given. In the Fishery Exhibition we have
before us now (in May, 1899) these young whiting are shown
as a proof of the wisdom of these gentlemen's proceedings.
Are they so immersed in the vast importance of the question
as to how many legs or other appendages a shrimp has, or
the exact percentage of grains of sand that a cockle
swallows, that they have not noticed this stupendous
phenomenon so destructive to all their theories. It has
existed for several years. Surely they are not deliberately
trusting to the want of knowledge of fishery questions in
an inland town, and trading on it ; and yet I do not
see how we can avoid one of these two conclusions. If
they do not know they are condemned. If they do know,
have they brought the matter before the Sea Fisheries
Committee and put them fully in possession of this
information. . .
A Had nature chosen to act the other way, and had their
meddling coincided with a great increase of whiting
instead of haddock, what a noise would have been made
throughout the world. Knighthoods or peerages would
49
have been too little honour for such demi-gods. But
Providence has timed it otherwise. Did w^ ^choose to
claim that first appearance demonstrated facts, we might
certainly assert that these fishery laws had destroyed the
whiting. We do not, however, act on their lines. We
recognise old Dame Nature's hand, and simply claim that
so far as the fisheries are concerned, all this cost and all
this cruelty have no effect on the supply of fish, good or
bad.
Apart from this phenomenon connected with the
whiting, experiments at Southport showed clearly that
a year was sufficient to make most fish sizable ; that
in the four chief groups three years would grow fish
to an enormous size ; shell fish as far as we have ■ any
data come under the same conditions, therefore in
return for the heavy cost, and the vastly more serious
moral, injury inflicted on our shore fishing popula-
tion, we are entitled to ask at the end of eight years for
some proof of the value of their work.
We were told the fishermen would soon recognise the
fishery officials as their best friends. Do they ? What are
the results ? Fishermen discontented, bitterly complaining,
risking fine and imprisonment rather than obey the law,
the scientists complaining that their boats have no time
for scientific work as the 13 baiHfi"s are so heavily employed
doing police work. More men are wanted, more areas
50
closed, 'greater powers— tliey even aspire to close the whole
Irish Sea — and more money, to be as I think I have shown,
hopelessly squandered.
' What can you expect, however, when the affairs are
directed by a gentleman who after some years' experience
can deliberately and seriously put such a proposal as this
forWa;rd :—
3rd. '' When the time comes, as it probably will,
when it will be cheaper and surer to farm fish than to
f ; hunt them, when fish are bred, reared, and fed up for
.,, market, then fish food will have to be accurately
ascertained and carefully cultivated, and all such
statistics as those we are now accumulating will be of
value, and receive their proper application."
Certainly the wildest scheme which ever was floated
on the Stock Exchange is the soberest common sense
compared with such a proposal, as any one will see who
will make a few calculations, and yet the lives and
destinies of our fishers and their families are practically at
the mercy of this scientific dreamer. And this is only one
instance. There are plenty of equally absurd proposals in
the Sea Fishery reports.
Again, forty or fifty years since there was a most im-
portant herring fishery in Morecambe Bay. I well
remember the time more than 200 boats fished regularly
every night during the season right in the bay, almost close
up to the Wyre light. So important was it that there was
51
a regular boat-building industry. Vessels were built
specially for it. BUt more than thirty years since the
heriring deserted the bay. Why, no one knows. Old
fishermen say the artillery practice at Fleetwood and
Morecambe was the cause. Certainly herring and mackerel
are very timid fish. I have been out in Morecarribe Bay,
off King's Scarr, lying at anchor with a large shoal of
mackerel playing on the aurface and almost close to the
boat. At the bdorri of a gun fired from Fleetwood they all
instantly disappeared, and I saw no more of them. I
hardly think, however, that if food was plentiful the her-
rings would desert, though firing late in the evening would
probably make them very timid and spoil the night'§
fishing. I fancy it is a question of food. The herrings
have not absolutely deserted the bay. A few are calight
in stake nets every year On Pilling Sands, and their fry,
in the shape of " whitebait," exists in large numbers.
Before the bye-laws were passed, I often made test draw:
ings along the coast, with specially-constructed nets, to
ascertain the state of things. These nets could never
have been used commercially. No fisherman would hav^
helped me and taken part of the catch as his share of the
day's work. They could do no possible harm, and they
yielded valuable results, but to prevent anything being
known by the public except through such information as
they edited and often misinterpreted, these drawings were
52
tnade illegal unless used by a fishery official. With these
nets I often got fine catches of whitebait, and it was with
whitebait caught in Morecambe Bay that we solved at
Southport the problem as to whether whitebait were the
young of the herring, by the simple and conclusive process
6f growing them into fine herrings. This was accom-
plished in two years, thus giving the rate of growth of
another of our great food fishes.
Personally I should not be surprised if the herring
returned to Morecambe Bay. They have deserted other
places for many years, sometimes half a century, and then
returned, and unless the artillery question has something
to do with it, I see no reason why they should not return
again.
About sixteen years since, I believe, they made an ap-
proach. I was dredging well out in the bay with an old boat-
man (Fairclough), when we found the sea birds in countless
thousands, such a sight as I have never seen before, or
since; hundreds of Gannets, and countless thousands of
Razor Bills, and Guillemots, beside myriads of Gulls. The
birds were so tame that I could have struck them with the
oars, all signs pointing to herring. This continued two
days. We reported it to the boatmen, and some of them
who had some old herring nets, went at night, and tried,
and caught a few, but not enough to pay, and apparently
the shoal thought better of it, and went elsewhere.
53.
Since the Fishery Board came into .office, a severe-,
calamity befel the cockle beds, for vast quantities were
killed during the terrible frosts a few years since. The
cockle beds, however, owing to the operation of two of the
great laws, namely, vast fecundity, and the capacity of,
overcrowded specimens to develop their full growth,
speedily recovered by natural means alone, without stop-
ping the cockling. This is a phenomenon which we can
understand, but our knowledge is only moved a step back..
We do not know why this specially severe frost came or^
why it worked so much destruction. Such a cause would not
affect the haddock, as down in the sea the frost has little
or no effect ; neither is it probable that any great calamity
befel the fish, for they graduahy died away, and after the
lapse of years as gradually returned. My own view is
that Frank Buckland's theory was the correct one, that it
is all a question of food, but this again only carries us one
step back as long as we know nothing of the cause why
special food should be plentiful for years, then cease, and
again become plentiful.
Since Mr. Buckland expressed this opinion, a case has
occurred under our own eyes which confirms it. During
my early days it was a very favourite amusement to go
fishing in the channel at Fleetwood, and very good sport
it was. For a great part of the year we could always rely
upon a good catch of codling up to two pounds weight.
54.
and fluke. In addition to this, there were always several
boats trawhng and getting nice catches. The Fleetwood
Channel is a small area, about two miles long from the
Kanch Buoy to the Wyre light, and at low water, when
alone the trawling takes place, not more than a quarter to
half a mile wide. By-and-bye the fishing fell off, and in
the latter seventies there was scarcely a fish to be caught.
Over-trawling, of course, was the alleged cause, and if
ever such a complaint could be justified it appeared
probable in this case, as the area trawled was so small,
though it had free communication with the sea. Coupled,
however, with the disappearance of the fish was the partial
exhaustion of the mussel beds, and even the ross formed
by the annelids was greatly reduced, made little growth,
and looked generally worn and shabby. In 1880, however,
I was rambling about the shore when I saw the whole
place, every blade of sea- weed, every stone or bit of stick
from high to low water covered with minute specks. A
lens showed at once that they were very little mussels. I
took a handful of sea-weed home, poured some boiUng
water on it, and so plentiful were the mussels, the size
of a very small pin's head, that I got half a teacup full
of them. I sent some to Mr. Buckland, who recorded this,
the most extraordmary fall of spat I have any experience
of, in Land and Water. I also showed them with a lens to
the local fishermen, telling them I believed next year the
55
fish would come back. The year following I went to Fleet-
wood to investigate. The first sight that caught my:eye
was no less than fourteen boats trawHng in the channel.
The fishermen said they had never known such an abund-
ance offish. I cannot, however, do better than copy the
report I sent at the time to Mr. Buckland, which appeared
in Land and Water.
" Last year I called your attention to the enormous
deposit of mussel spat at Fleetwood, and, in fact, every-
where that I have visited. I have just returned from a
rather long visit to Fleetwood, and I have brought
with me some of the young mussels of last year, a few
of which I enclose you. You will note that, like most
forms of aquatic life, their progress during the twelve
months has varied very much indeed. Some of the
banks are far more advanced than others. I have
made a careful exammation of the beds, and much as
the prodigious fall last year suprised me, I am still
more astonished at the sight presented now. Every
inch of ground to which a mussel could anchor itself,
even almost to high-water mark, has been taken posses-
sion of. Scores of acres of gravel beds, which, with
thirty years' experience of the coast, I have never
known as mussel beds, are now densely crowded with
them. They have completely altered the nature of the
shore, and over vast tracts where it used to be pleasant
to walk and watch the living inhabitants of the sea in
the tide pools, there is now a thick crust of mussels,
with a substratum some inches thick of soft mud, into
which one sinks ankle deep. It is an interesting
56
question what the mussels will do ; at present there-
are at least ten where one full-grown one can live. In-
some places where the tide has great power, it has,
(assisted by trawling vessels) worked through the mud
under the mass of mussels, and lifted them bodily
away; this only appears to distribute them more
evenly. Nature, however, is hard at work setting
matters right. In the first place, as I predicted
last year, enormous quantities of fish have made their
appearance, so much so that although the channel is
•only about two miles long by a quarter-of-a-mile wide
at low water, there are always several trawl boats (on
one day there were 15) at work, in addition to many
t>oats fishing with lines, and yet there is no diminution
of the supply. The fish are being largely assisted
by other creatures ; starfishes are especially plentiful.
Another singular phenomenon attracted my attention.
For a number of "years past the nars, or ross, the
curious sort of sand coral, built and inhabited by
countless milhons of annelids, has been in a very
dilapidated state, ragged looking, and very rotten, as
if the worms had seen their best days, and were rapidly
going down hill ; now simultaneously with the great
mussel fall, these nars have taken a fresh start, the old
rugged lumps are covered with a new regular growth,
and the rotten parts have become consolidated and
firm to the tread; not only this, but new ones are
springing up between the mussels over vast tracts
'which have never previously borne them. As a proof
of the great vitality at present existing, I secured two
young whelks, — B. tmdatnm, — evidently last year's
brood, each of which carried on its back a lump about
57
four inches high of Uving ross. I was much surprised
to see it, as I was not aware that the building operation
•was so rapid that the foundation could be laid on a
moving object, and a building so high erected so
quickly. The large crass anemones are also very much
more numerous. In fact the whole shore has awakened
in a most surprising manner. Why it should be so,
what the connection is between mussels and annelids,
I cannot make out ; the fish are accounted for by the
abundant supply of food. I presume the mussels and
worms are accounted for by the same conditions suit--
ing both ; but what are these ? " Heat and tran-
quility," so good for oysters, won't do here, for last
year there was neither. Again, the mussels are
thickest and largest where the rush of tide is strongest.
This year, though so very much warmer and calmer,
does not appear to have yielded any fall of mussel spat
worth naming."
■ The year following I went again, and found the same state
of things, but Dame Nature discovered that even all her
ordinary destructive forces were not sufficient to keep the
mussels in check. They had accumulated to a foot and a
half to two feet thick in some places, so she called the tides
to work, lifted them bodily, hundreds and thousands of tons,
and threw them into the channel, washing them away to
sea. This was the time referred to by some of the wit-
nesses at the Preston enquiry, when they said eighteen or
twenty boats from Morecambe, in addition to the Fleetwood
boats, were gathering mussels, and gathering them so
58
small that they only fetched a shilling to eighteen pence
per sack, and there was nothing for the fishermen. As far
aS this is concerned, the evidence falls by its own weight.
All those boats with four men each would not have come
from Morecambe tide after tide, and done the fearfully hard
work connected with musseling, unless it had paid them
well on the average, and if it did pay them, it was certainly
no harm, but probably a distinct gain, for if more had been
taken the many acres of ground left bare by the tide might
have retained their stock. The work is too hard, and the
economical conditions too strict to allow men wantonly and
for pure destructiveness to take mussels, and when they
are so plentiful that they can be got so as to sell them cheap
and yet pay it is a distinct advantage to the community.
There has been no such fall of spat since, though there has
apparently been no scarcity, and the fishing has never
fallen on the evil times of the latter seventies.
Now, if trawling could trawl out a space open to the
ocean, surely it should have done so in the narrow channel
of Fleetwood, for so many boats must have taken a very
large proportion of the fish out each time, but as man took
them Nature supplied them from her reserves, over
and over again, and will do so as long as there is the attrac-
tion of food, whatever man can do.
One thing might be done for mussel culture, though not
on the natural beds. There are large areas in the estuary
59
of the Wyre so suitable for mussel fattening that if they
could only be leased and secured to the fishermen, they
would bring in a large revenue. Many years ago, when
Mr. John Bright was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan-
caster, I brought this question before him, and he entered
into it, but unfortunately he resigned office, and as I had no
influence with his successor, the matter fell through, but
surely our County Council might do something.
Mr. Dawson now suggests the same idea, but his plan is
to make the fishermen dependent even for this privilege on
himself and his colleagues. Why cannot the Duchy of
Lancaster lease the foreshore for this purpose direct to the
fishermen ? Better in my opinion even be without the
privilege than put the fishermen still further under this
authority. I have named several times the cruel and incon-
siderate way in which the bye-laws are enforced. I give a
sample, too bad to allow the magistrates to convict, copied
from the local papers.
The report in the Ulverston News of April 8th, 1899,
is as follows : —
Before Mr. E. Wadham (chairman), Mr. B. B. Gardner,
and Mr. W. R. Nash.
Removing Undersized Mussels at Aldingham :
A Victory for the Fishermen.— James Porter, Robert
Porter, John Shaw, and Edward Martin were charged
at the instance of the Lancashire Sea Fishery Board
with removing from a certain fishery on the 20th
6o
ultimo, a quantity of mussels less than two and
a-quarter inches in length. Mr. Sanderson, of Lan^
caster, appeared to prosecute, and Mr. Poole defended.
John Wright, head fishery baihff", stated that on the
date named he was on duty at Moat Point, near
Aldingham Church, when he saw the defendants
returning from the mussel bed at Roosebeck in their
boats. When the Porters saw him they emptied six
bags of mussels into their boat. On taking a sample
he found that out of sixty-seven only ten were of the
proper size. — Cross-examined : The mussels were got
in deep water with rakes, and as they were brought
up in lumps they had to be dressed. To my knowledge
it is not the custom to bring the mussels to the mooring
place, dress them there, and take the small ones back
the next day, I never told Shaw or any other fisher-
man that he was all right so long as he did this. —
Wm. Thompson, another bailifi", stated that of the
sample of Shaw's and Martin's mussels, which he
examined, seventy-four were small and nineteen large.
Defendant had over two hours in which to sort them-
when coming up in the boat, and he considered the
weather fit for the purpose. — John Hargraves, a third
bailiff, confirmed this. In cross-examination he
positively denied that in the presence of the defendants
he had told them they were all right so long as they
dressed their mussels at the landing stage and carried
the small ones back next day. What he told Bailey
was that they would have some small ones to take
back. — Mr. Poole, in his address to the Bench, said he
had never heard a witness give his evidence in such an
unsatisfactory manner as Hargraves, who had. quibbled
6i
and shuffled and lied in a most extraordinary way. —
Mr. Thompson; No, no. — Mr. Poole repeated the
statement, and added that there were scientific hars
as well as other liars. He contended that there was
nothing in the evidence to show that the mussels had
been permanently removed from their natural bed, or
that they had been appropriated for the purposes of
sale. He called Samuel Bailey, fisherman, Thomas
Shaw, fisherman, and the four defendants, all of whom
swore that it was impossible to dress the mussels at
sea, and that the bailiffs had seen them being dressed
at the mooring without raising an objection. — In such
rough weather it was impossible to dress them at sea. —
Bailey added that the witness, Hargraves, had on one
occasion stated in the presence of Martin and Shaw at
the mooring that if the mussels were dressed there,
and made marketable, and the small ones taken back,
it would be all right. Sometimes the mussels were
loose in the boat, and at other times they were put in
bags and used as ballast. — The Chairman : And did
the officers ever interfere with you for doing this ? —
No, never. — Mr. Sanderson said the question was
whether the mussels had been removed from the
fishery within the meaning of the bye-law, and he
called attention to the judgment in the Appeal Court
of Justice Wills in the cockling case of Thompson
v. Burns. — The Chairman : We have carefully
considered this case, and from the evidence before
us we don't consider any breach of the bye-laws
has taken place. The cases, therefore, will be
dismissed.
62
' .Now, sir, can we conceive anything much worse ? The
well-fed '* Bumbles " of the Sea Fishery Committee, waiting
comfortably on shore, know that fishermen's wives and
children have a bad habit of getting hungry even in
stqrmy weather, and that husbands and fathers must risk
their lives in wind and storm to feed them, see their op-
portunity of getting '* cases," and seize it. I won't say
more. The report is enough.
Finally, sir, let us enquire what the deep sea trawling
fishery of the Irish Sea is, for all this cost and cruelty is
avowedly in order that more large fish may be caught there.
The position of the Irish Sea is precisely the same as a large
farm. Enormous quantities of seed can be planted and
grown to a certain age and size, but the amount of fish or
full-grown plants, say, for example, cabbages, is regulated
by the size and fertility of the fields. We find while the
seed beds are enormous along the coasts, the fields are com-
paratively small.
The law of retardation of growth, which I have explained
before, seems to apply in this limited sea, and I think also
the feeding grounds are not rich pasture. The beds can in
no possible sense compare with the grounds out in the ,open
sea. In its palmiest days, 30, 40, 50 years ago, the fishery
was more important than it is to-day, but not pev se simply
because of the economic conditions that prevailed, just as in
those days our English copper and tin mines, or wheat
63
fields, &c.,were of value ; population was much smaller, means
of transport were much inferior, demand for sea fish was less,
the great ocean fishing grounds were many of them undis-
covered, and, above all, steam trawling was unknown on a
commercial scale, and no means existed of preserving fish
for more than a few days, consequently at this time it paid
to fish the small Irish Sea beds for all they were worth.
Yet even at this time the fishing fleet from Fleetwood, by
far the most important of all on the Irish Sea, never num-
bered more than 150 small boats carrying four or five men
and a lad. To-day there are only 44, and during the life of
the Sea Fisheries Committee, instead of a great revival,
there is a steady decrease, for in 1890 there were 66, and had
it not been for the beneficent action of Dame Nature referred
to previously, in bringing such shoals of haddock off our
coast, probably there would not have been a dozen, as the
catch of haddock, reaching as it does to a ton and more per
day per boat, is the source of profit, and this is the industry
supposed to be protected at such cost of money and indi-
vidual suffering. Yet there is a great increase in the amount
of fish landed at Fleetwood. Why this contradiction?
Something has taken place totally independent of the Sea
Fishery Committee ; though very lightly alluded^to by the
scientists, it is of vast importance to our subject. Fleetwood
has been thought by some of the Great Grimsby firms to be
a convenient port for landing their fish, and a fleet of 50 or
64
6o large steam trawlers, loo to i6o tons burden, fishing with
nets 90 feet wide and more on the otter trawl system, as
compared with the 30 to 50 feet nets on the old beam trawl
principle, independent of weather and tides, fishing with
double sets of gear, one set always down while the fish
caught by the other are being sorted and the nets cleared,
carrying crews of eight to 18 men, and steam power for
hauling nets and doing all the hardest work, have found it
paid to land their fish at Fleetwood for certain markets. One
firm alone, to give an idea of the size of the fishing industry,
had no less than 37 of these boats landing their fish there.
But these boats are not fishing on the grounds protected (?) by
Professor Herdman. They are equipped to go further afield
and reap the rich harvest of the deep sea beds. They fish
off Iceland, off the Hebrides, anywhere ; a thousand miles is
no object to these grand productions of modern practical
science. Again, the boats fishing for mackerel and herring
off the Scotch coast now land a great deal of their fish at
Fleetwood, and these great fisheries are so much more profit-
able that more and more capital is finding its way into them.
We might, of course, expect that only 44 boats fishing where
120 to 150 fished years ago, the individual boats would get
more fish, as they would be able to pick out the best bits of
ground for themselves, and such is the case, though if it were
not for the haddock even this would not be so ; but that it
will not pay to increase their numbers is evident, or they
65
would increase Instead of decreasing. So small compared
with the great whole is the amount they catch that it has
almost no effect on the trade.
We find on investigation that even the towns of Lanca-
shire itself do not rely upon this supply, but draw from
Grimsby and Hull the products of the open deep-sea
fisheries, and not only the inland towns but Liverpool,
Southport, Lytham, Blackpool, Morecambe, Ulverston, and
more wonderful still, Fleetwood itself. The principal fish-
shop in Fleetwood is owned by the principal owner of the
Fleetwood smacks, and yet his own shop receives its daily
supply of fish from Grimsby, as the Irish sea fishery is too
small and unreliable to maintain a supply for a steady demand.
What about the great towns of Ireland, more especially
the coast towns, Dublin and Belfast, for instance ? These
towns also draw their supplies from Grimbsy. Every day,
about noon, two heavily loaded trains leave Grimsby to
catch the Fleetwood and Holyhead steamers, so as to have
their fish in Belfast and Dublin by next morning. The
large Grimsby fish merchants are personal friends of mine,
and have themselves given me the statistics. This con-
dition of things has come to stay. Professor Herdman and
Mr. Dawson can do nothing to stop these wealthy com-
panies. They are not poor, helpless fishermen whom they
can prosecute ad lib; nay, more, it will increase. At
present very few fishing grounds are known compared with
66
the probable total, and we are certain that the limit in
power and capacity of steam trawlers has not been reached.
They are built larger and more, effective each year. Those
built ten years ago are almost obsolete, and I venture to
say those of to-day in another generation will be looked
upon as antiquated.
^ What then is to be done with our Irish Sea fisheries if,
like our wheat fields, they can no longer be useful to supply
the mam wants of the population ? They must supply the
minor luxuries, shrimps, cockles, and comparatively small
fish for those who love a tasty morsel. Already these
fisheries exceed in volume many times the deep-sea
^sheries, and employ many times the number of men. If
protection was possible, it is the shrimp industry that
should have it, and judging by the bottles shown by the
Fishery Committee as the food of fishes, it needs it very
t)adly, for the larger forms evidently consume an amount
of shrimps utterly out of proportion to their own value,
and we might take up a crusade against predaceous fishes
in all stages, little as well as big, with far more justice than
closing grounds and limiting the work of our inshore men,
until actually Southport, which used to be called Shrimp-
opolis, is drawing supplies of shrimps from Holland,
when there are plenty at our own doors if the shrimpers
are allowed to take them. The Lancashire Coast and
Irish Sea Fisheries are precisel}' in the position of
67
agricultural land near large towns, almost useless for growing
wheat, it has great value for growing vegetables, supply-
ing eggs, poultry, milk, &c., and our coast fisheries must
supply shrimps, cockles, mussels, smaller fish, &c., for
which there is always a large demand, and a large and
valuable element in our population must be encouraged to
find better means of fishing, not worried and harassed by
utterly senseless prosecutions.
It has always appeared to me extraordinary that when
the Lancashire County Council got their powers they
utterly ignored all that had been done before, and refusing
to commence with such light as there was and work on
from that, they commenced de novo groping in absolute
darkness. Probably the members of the County Council
were not told by their scientific advisers what had been
done, though there were many sources of information to
start from. I refer especially to the Government enquiries
all round our coasts by Messrs. Buckland and Walpole,
now Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B. In passing, let me pay
a tribute to my old friend, Frank Buckland. It is the
fashion among many of our modern scientists to sneer at
Buckland as a naturalist because his ways were not their
ways. He was educated before the modern schools of
biology assigned to themselves such vast importance and lost
the study of Nature in microscopic investigation. As the
eminent Japanese zoologist, Professor Mitsukuri, mournfully
68
exclaims: "Nowadays it is very rare to read of the
pleasures of a naturalist. Zoology and botany have become
too serious a business to leave much margin for pleasure."
But if we understand by naturalist a keen observer of
Nature, a passionate lover of her ways and works, a man
with a capacity for interesting others in her study and in-
ducing them to do their best work and give the world the
benefit of their knowledge, Frank Buckland has no living
representative, and unless we except Gilbert White, of
Selborne, we look in vain for his equal in his own line.
His name will stand out for the work he did with his free,
open, generous nature when many of the pitiful scramblers
to be the first to announce to an astonished world some
trifling discovery which they have made are forgotten. He
was utterly incapable of launching forth as facts ill-
considered guesses at the operations of Nature. Imagine
what he would have said to the idea of closing a whole
county's seaboard to scientific investigation.
I think no one who knows anything of the subject, can
compare for a moment the two enquiries, in regard either
to the scope of the enquiry, the value of the evidence, the
analysis of the evidence, or the final judgment. Every
scrap of real evidence since obtained, and the utter failure
to obtam any good result by adopting a course in opposition
to the finding of this court, has proved the correctness of
their judgment. Their decision is rendered more impressive
69
by the fact that the Commissioners entered upon their task,
if anything, prejudiced in favour of repressive legislation,
and impressed by the idea that an enormous destruction of
small fish was taking place, and that our fisheries were
being ruined.
Before 1878 we find Mr. Buckland writing in season
and out of season, in his own impetuous way, denouncing
the fearful destruction of small fish, even introducing the
question into his Salmon Fishery reports to Parliament, so
eager was he for something to be done.
In 1878, however, Government, impressed with the con-
tinual outcry, appointed two commissioners. Buckland was
one, but with him they coupled Mr. Walpole, perhaps the
very best selection they could have made, for, while a
naturalist himself, Mr. Walpole was as cool and logical as
Buckland w^as hasty and impetuous. He brought to the
enquiry the mind of a trained barrister, educated specially
to sift evidence, and to endeavour to extract the truth out
of masses of conflicting statements.
I will not weary you with all the contradictory evidence,
it is all published in the Blue Book, but will confine my-
self to quoting their conclusions arrived at after, as I have
said, an enquiry not confined to the Lancashire coast but
extending all round the British Isles.
" The sea cannot support more than a certain propor-
tion of the fish that are born, and there is no harm,
70
therefore, in utilising the remainder as food. The same
argument might be urged against the eating of eggs or
the eating of lambs, and the same reply might be given.
But the world has long since made up its mind to go on
eating eggs and lamb, and the reasons which justify it
in doing so justify it still more in eating fish fry.
" There is one argument urged against this view,
which, however, requires consideration. If, it is asked,
it be unnecessary to preserve the fry of sea fish, why is
it necessary to preserve the fry of salmon ? The answer
to the question may, we believe, be found in the distinc-
tive habits of salmon and sea fish. Salmon are fish
which migrate to and from river and sea. Sea fish are
fish which live in the ocean. It is obviously possible
for man to place some obstruction across a narrow
channel in order to stop all or nearly all the salmon in
their migration. But it is impossible by any device to
surround or capture all the fish in the ocean. Salmon
can be intercepted like the traffic which passes along a
street. Sea fish can no more be intercepted than the
traffic which crosses a plain. There is nothing easier
than to place a turnpike gate across a road and to force
all vehicles passing along it to pay toll. But a turnpike
gate on a broad plain would be of no use. Nearly every
carriage would pass it on one side or the other.
" This example seems to us exactly to illustrate the
distinction between a fish like a salmon frequenting a
narrow channel during one portion of the year and sea
fish which pass the whole of their life in the sea.
Whenever the habits of any fish compel it to live
throughout the year in a confined area to which man
has access, or to pass once or more m any year into
71
some narrow space commanded, or being capable of
being commanded, by man, laws seem necessary for its
preservation. When, on the contrary, the fish live in
the open sea, we believe that no such laws are neces-
sary.
" It may, however, be thought that all sea fish, or
most sea fish, do come within the rules which have
thus been laid down, since all sea fish, during the
earlier stages of their development, draw in either to
estuaries, or to the shallow waters which fringe the shore.
But, speaking generally, there is no reason to suppose
that the operations of man are making any sensible
impression on the numbers of the fry even in these
places, since there is no evidence that the stock of fish
in the sea generally is decreasing.
" Complaints of a decrease of plaice and flounders
were made to us at Furness, Ulverston, and on the
north side of Morecambe Bay, and the decrease was
almost universally attributed to the shrimpers, or to
the neglect of the shrimpers to throw over the young
flat fish at sea. It appeared, however, in the course of
our inquiry that in the neighbouring estuary of the
Duddon, where there was no shrimping, the decrease
of flat fish was equally marked. It is fair to assume
that the same cause is affectmg both places, and as the
decrease in Duddon estuary cannot be attributed to
the shrimpers, it see;ns unfair to lay the blame of an
exactly similar decrease in Morecambe Bay on the
shrimpers."
And on further considering even the question of pro-
hibiting the sale of small fish their judgment was as
follows — ■
72
" Small immature fish are the food of the poor.
Weight for weight, immature fish are cheaper than
mature fish, and, therefore, unless the^ clearest grounds
for prohibiting it can be explained, their sale ought not,
in our judgment, to be prohibited. The evidence on which
we have formed the conclusions at which we have already-
arrived in this report satisfies us that these grounds
have not, as yet, been proved to exist. There are no
reasons for thinking that the supply of fish, taken as a
whole, is decreasing ; there are no reasons for thinking
that the destruction of immature fish which is un-
doubtedly going on is wasteful in the sense that it is
diminishing the future supply of mature fish, and it is
not proved, even in those isolated instances in which a
decrease of fish may be traced, that the decrease is due
to over-fishing. Those who have read Mr. Lecky's
interesting history of the i8th century will probably
remember that more than loo years ago the Irish
attributed the decreased supply of pilchards on their
coasts to the new system of trailing (query trawling)
which had then been lately introduced. At a still earlier
period, Bishop Wilson, the eminent prelate of Sodor
and Man, ordered a general prayer to be offered up in
the Litany, 'That it may please Thee to give and
preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, and
to restore and continue the blessings of the sea, so that
in due time we may enjoy them.' This beautiful
prayer, which is still read every Sunday in the churches
of the Isle of Man, is a clear proof that Bishop Wilson
thought that the fishery needed restoring. More than
forty years ago, Jeffrey, staying in Renfrewshire for the
summer, noticed that there were no herrings in the
73
Firth of Clyde. About the same time, a trawler fish-
ing from Scarborough, laid three soles on the pier at
that place with the observation that they were ' the last
three in the sea;' while in 1837 a petition presented
to Parliament declared that the fishermen of Scotland,
Ireland, and Holland had found out the breeding-
places of the herrings, and had resorted there to catch
them, and that since the discovery was made the fishery
generally throughout the West and North of Scotland
had annually decreased. It is an instructive com-
mentary on the petition that the yield of the Scotch
herring fishery was actually increasing at the time at
which it was presented, and that the yield is now more
than double what it was then. In the same way the
people who now complain of the want of fish in the
Irish Sea forget that similar complaints were made by
their ancestors more than a century ago. The people
who ascribe the recent failure of the herring fishery in
the Firth of Clyde to the introduction of circle trawl-
ing forget that Jeffrey had noticed the failure before
circle trawling was introduced. There is always, in
fact, a temptation to ascribe any failure in the yield of
any particular fishery to some interference on the part
of man. There is always a temptation to overlook the
fact that the same failures periodically occurred when
the operations of man, slight as we believe them to be,
were much more imperceptible than they are now, and
to ignore the consequent inference that failures have
occurred in the past, and may, therefore, occur agaiii
in the future, from" causes which man has been, and
probably still is, unable to control."
74
A few years later, in the literature of the Sea Fisheries
Exhibition, we find Sir Spencer Walpole declaring in
reply to a statement that fishermen decimated the shoals
of fish approaching the shore to spawn : —
" Even assuming it were possible, I doubt whether
any harm would result. No one would think a farmer
improvident who brought one-tenth of his herd annu-
ally to market. A fish reaches maturity much more
rapidly than an ox, and is some thousands of times
more productive than a cow. Why, then, should it be
improvident for a fisherman to do what no one would
think a farmer improvident for doing ? In short,
though I doubt the possibility of decimating a shoal of
fish, I should regard such a course, if it were practic-
able, as about the best use the fisherman could make of it."
And further —
" While I am opposed on the one hand to the im-
position of unnecessary restrictions on fishermen, so I
am opposed on the other to all patronage simply as
such, because I believe the best part of the British
fishermen is the independence which they enjoy ; and
God forbid the independence which they have won by
their own efforts should be taken away from them by
the patronage of other people."
The same authority pointed out that the prohibition of
trawling in the loughs and bays of Ireland had not resulted
in an increase of the Irish fisheries.
It is a relief, after reading the reports of the Lancashire
Sea Fisheries Board, the assurance of superior wisdom, the
75
assumption of almost infinite ignorance on the part of
practical fishermen, and the impertinent, patronising ac-
count of how he teaches them their business of Professor
Herdman, and the sickening account of the progress made
in turning our free, independent fishing population into
criminals of Mr. Dawson's reports to turn to this summing
up of the case by Sir Spencer Walpole, a man who knows
the men well, has won their confidence and esteem, and
has taken the trouble to study the fishermen, their in-
terests and characteristics, as well as the contents of the
stomachs of cockles.
It is a curious thing, but so completely has Mr. Walpole's
identity been obscured by his long and successful govern-
ment of the Isle of Man, and since then his skilful conduct
as General Secretary of the Post Office, that he is constantly
referred to as " the late Mr. Walpole." Professor Mcintosh
himself falls into this error. He is, however, still very
much alive, and will, I hope, enjoy for many years
the well-deserved honours conferred upon him by his
sovereign.
Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., does not think it would be
a good precedent for him, as a retired pubHc official, to re-
enter the arena of fishery politics, but he permits me to say
that nothing has transpired since he and Mr. Buckland held
their exhaustive enquiry round our coasts to alter in any
way the opinion which he then formed.
76
Again, Dr. Day, CLE., who even our scientists quote
as an authority, was on his return from India imbued with
the same idea as they are. On his own account and at his
own expense he made a careful enquiry round our coasts
while preparing the material for his splendid work on British
Fishes. The result was that he w^as convinced that no
restrictions whatever could profitably be placed on our
fishermen.
Sir Thomas Brady, lately one of the inspectors of
Irish Fisheries, is strongly impressed with the same
views.
Professor Mcintosh, on the Scotch coast, in his splendid,
exhaustive, and convincing w^ork just published, " The
Resources of the Sea," takes the same view.
Mr. Dunn, the great Cornish authority on fisheries,
largely interested in them pecuniarily, to whom their success
is of vital importance, is pressing the same views on the
authorities.
Many others could be named. Authority after authority,
disgusted by the futility and cruelty of the legislation of
the past 15 years, which finds its extreme on the Lancashire
coast, and its wastefulness from an economical point of
view, are coming round to the views so ably expressed by
Mr. Walpole 16 years since, and so verified by the results
of a policy opposed to his advice. The advisers of the
Lancashire County Council seem to be almost the only
77
people now left who do not or will not see light in the
darkness.
Something, however, in Mr. Dawson's report seems
more serious than all that I have so far said. It is the very
first principle of law-making that the law shall be workable,
and that it shall be effectually enforced. If not, whatever
it may be it is useless and demoralising. But as we read
Mr. Dawson's reports we find the most pitiful complaints
that with all the costly staff and means at his disposal he
cannot efficiently " protect the fisheries." He needs more
steamers, more boats, more bailiffs to patrol the waters in
fair weather, and more to lurk on shore in stormy weather
to entrap the unwary and storm-tossed men who have
brought a few undersized mussels into quiet water. He
says with such an inefficient staff he can only pay " surprise
visits." This means that if these Bye-Laws are to be
effectually enforced, and there is no middle course, we must
provide Messrs. Herdman and Dawson with a fleet of
steamers and other vessels, and a small army of bailiffs ; we
must pay tens of thousands where we now pay thousands of
pounds, and must be prepared to see hundreds of fishermen
prosecuted where we now see scores, until all spirit,
independence, and life is dragooned out of them, and they
are kept down by a literal reign of terror. But further, if
this is right on the Lancashire coast, it is right all round
England. The cost will amount to hundreds of thousands
7^:
of pounds in money ; but in the entire demoralisation of our
fishermen, who shall count the cost ?
England has relied more than once on the free,
independent spirit of these men, and dare she for the sake
of a few small fish stamp this spirit out ? If it was proved
that these laws did far more good than even their wildest
advocates surmise they may do, would it be worth it ? In
my opinion our fisheries themselves are hardly worth it.
But when the best evidence and the best opinions go to
show that it is absolutely useless, are we in Lancashire
prepared to give these men carte-blanche, and then to pay
the bill ? Are we prepared to take the responsibility of
leading in this, as I think, thoroughly bad cause ?
You will perhaps say, then, do you propose to do nothing ?
Certainly not. I should be a poor naturaHst if I proposed
we should rest satisfied with our present knowledge. Let
the County Council, if they will, endow original research,
but avowedly as such. Let us have as much interesting
information as we can get about the denizens of the sea, &c.
Nay, further, if by any chance any worker appears to be
doing any honest work of commercial value, even if it is the
biologists of University College (if such a thing is possible),
let us assist them for all it is worth. We are a rich county,
and can afford the capital for anything that is worth it, but
all this can be done at a small cost compared with what is
spent at present.
79
In regard to the work being done at present, what does it
amount to, speaking commercially, and as a return for the
great expenditure ? Some monographs of semi-microscopic
crustaceans, telling the number of their limbs, and giving
pretty woodcuts of them ; interesting accounts of how a
great steamer set little bottles afloat in the various cross-
currents of the Irish Sea, &c. ; all which may be interesting
i;i its way, and is valuable for our purpose, as it demonstrates
their absolute ignorance of the very first elements of their
problem, but commercially is playing with the merest out-
skirts of their subject. I fail to see the comimercial use of
repeating ad uauseum the examination of the stomachs of fish,
and carefully noting the exact percentage of each kind of
food found in them, unless for some special purpose.
The general food of sea fishes was sufficiently well
known for all practical, as distinguished from purely
scientific, purposes, five-and4wenty years since. Judging
from the bottles in the Fishery Exhibition, I should say a
great deal has been forgotten since then. But what does it
amount to ? Fish, like Homo sapiens, have a wide range of
diet, and each individual fish, like each man, gets his living
by minding his own business and finding the best pasture
he can. The diet of man is fairly understood, but suppose
Mr. Dawson let down his net and took a dozen aldermen
returning from a Lord Mayor's feast, and then took a drag
through a workhouse and captured a dozen paupers. He
8o
would hand these over to Professor Herdman. The worthy
professor would examine their gizzards, and we should, to
be on all fours with the fishery reports, have a learned
explanation as to the percentage of turtle soup and venison
fat in one series of subjects, and the brown bread and oat-
meal in the other, and some very sagacious remarks as to
the evident superiority of the one diet to the other, gauged
by the condition of the subjects, but cui bono, neither Pro-
fessor Herdman nor all the County Council can arrange
such a trifling matter as that paupers shall have the fare of
Aldermen. Infinitely less can they do to provide fish in the
sea in poor circumstances with diet to them " aldermanic."
When we come to analyse commercially the practical
work done by this costly institution, whether we take the
pretty but pitifully meagre, as far as any progress is con-
cerned, exhibition which is being hawked from town to
town, or the reports presented to the Committee, or the
result of ten years' police persecution of the fishermen,
and compare it with the heavy yearly bill and the vast
means employed — the whole biological staff of University
College, a highly-salaried Superintendent of Sea Fisheries,
a small army of thirteen water bailiffs, a powerful, well-
found steamer, sundry other boats, nets, and scientific ap-
paratus galore ; a station at Port Erin, and another at Peel —
it gives us one distinction. There is an old story of two
little girls disputing about the grandeur of their ancestral
8i
mansions. One for a minute or two eclipsed the other by
announcing that their house had a verandah on it, but was
completely annihilated when hep opponent retorted " that
was nothing, their house had a mortgage on it." If any
inhabitant of some other county should crow over us, and
announce that they have got the sea serpent on their coast,
we Lancashire people can always proudly retort that we
possess the mountain in labour that brought forth a mouse,
and we go one better than the ancient fable, for our mouse
is still-born.
After forty years' careful study of the question, both by
my own work and that done by others, the more I see and
learn, the more vast the problem becomes. I am convinced
that the Great Author of the Universe, though He created
man in His own image, and gave him vast mental powers,
as He visibly only endowed him with feeble physical powers
■compared with His own, so in the realm of mind, He main-
tains His own supremacy, and while He allows us to learn
much. He reserves still more which we cannot fathom,
and shows us our own impotence to control the great
forces and influences of Nature. On land He gives us much
power, and, to encourage industry and other good qualities.
He makes the fruits of the" earth ^very much dependent on
our exertions and industry ; but in the open seas He
gives freely of His bounty, and He shows us His own
power and goodness and our dependence on Him by making
82
conditions such that we can neither affect the supply
favourably or unfavourably by any effort of ours. Or, to put
it in other words, Nature's laboratory or workshop. Old
Ocean, where she manufactures the food fishes, &c., is on
such a gigantic scale, and the portion our limited powers of
mind and body can affect is so infinitesimal, that nothing we
can do can seriously affect even this portion. In regard to
the larger part, until we are qualified to take the direction of
the great forces of Nature out of the hands of the Infinite,
it is hopeless to expect we can in any way affect it.
It is an instructive fact that the results of original
research, while of fascinating interest to us as naturalists, if
they show us one thing more clearly than another, it is our
utter helplessness to control matters. Probably no discovery
in natural history is more startling in itself, or more conclu-
sive in this respect, than the working out within the last two
or three years of the early stages of the life history of our
common fresh-water eel, a subject that has puzzled and
interested naturalists since Aristotle's time. I quote from
Sir John Lubbock's speech at the opening of the Inter-
national Congress of Zoologists last year at Cambridge : —
*• Until quite recently its life history was absolutely unknown.
Aristotle pointed out that ' eels were neither male nor female,
and that their eggs were unknown.' This remained true
until a year or two ago. No one had ever seen the egg of
an eel, or a young eel less than five centimetres (ij inch) in
H3
length. We now know, thanks mainly to the researches of
Grassi, that the parent eels go down to the sea and breed in
the depths of the ocean, in water not less than 3,000 feet in
depth. There they adopt a marriage dress of silver, and
their eyes considerably enlarge, so as to make the most of
the dim Hght in the ocean depths. Certain small fishes
found in the same regions had been regarded as a special
family, known as Leptocephali ; these also were never known
to breed. It now appears that they are the larvae of eels, the
one known as Leptocephahis hvevivostris being the young of our
common fresh-water species. When they get to the length
of about an inch they change into the tiny eels known as
' elvers,' which swarm in thousands up our rivers. Thus the
habits of the eel reverse those of the salmon."
Now, sir, can anything in Nature be more marvellous or
more interesting than this ? But can anything more clearly
show us our utter helplessness to control or affect even so
common, so well known, and so accessible a form as the
common eel ? Even Professor Herdman, I fancy, would
hardly propose that we should " wattle off" a portion of the
ocean bed 500 fathoms deep and feed Leptocephalus hvevivostris
on " offal " to increase our supply of eels. Again, Professor
Herdman's own costly researches into the food of fishes,
though they are very incomplete, and as far as they go only
comprise investigations made and recorded twenty years
since, must convince any practical mind of the utter
84
impossibility of ever realising his dream of turning sea-fish
into domestic animals. Many of the creatures the fish feed
upon are more mysterious and more beyond our ken than
are the habits and breeds of the fishes themselves.- We are
not even in the very first stage of understanding them, but
from the migrations of the fish and the fluctuations of the
fisheries, we see how slight a change in food and surround-
ings is of vital importance to their welfare. No, sir, Provi-
dence knows His own vocation, and exercises His own
powers. Happily for us. He provides enough for each,
enough for all, enough for evermore, and a free invitation to
take as much as we can. Having done so, let us eat with
thankful hearts.
The fishermen have behaved nobly under the suffering
they have endured. What other industry or profession would
have stood for ten years the arrogant and impertinent med-
dling of pure scientific faddists ? What other body of men
would have remained patient and orderly while they saw
their industry interfered with by rank outsiders ? Which of
us would allow our businesses, created entirely by our own
unaided skill and energy, to be harassed and controlled by
the scientific staff of a college, however eminent, if utterly
without practical knowledge ?
However, knowledge is increasing, and as soon as the
public understand the question, the whole mass of legislation
founded on dense ignorance will be swept away, and the
85
fishermen will once more be permitted to pursue their calling
in peace. The group of pure scientists, who have for the
last ten years sat with such disastrous results, like Sinbad
the Sailor's Old Man of the Sea, on the shoulders of our
fishing population, will receive their due reward. When
it is understood how great is the darkness in which they
have presumed to legislate, posterity will give them a niche
in the temple of fame as the fitting representatives at the
end of the igth century of dear worthy, honest, old Dame
Partington, the account of whose efforts to hold back the
tide with her mop for fear the sea beach should get wet,
was one of the joys of our childhood.
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