Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/253

 243 FISHERIES TTNDER the heading Sea Fisheries, which form the tJ particular subject of the present article, 1 may be included the various operations engaged in for the capture of the different forms of marine life which, in some manner or other, minister to the wants or convenience of man. The most important of these fisheries those only, in fact, to which the title strictly belongs, and which have more or less widely occupied attention from probably the earliest times are carried on chiefly by hook and line or net, with the object of obtaining fish for the purposes of food ; and this main division of the general subject will be here con sidered. nport- Although little or nothing is known of the methods of ice of fi s hi U g on our coasts in very early times, there can be no ust doubt that in England, as in all maritime countries, fish has always been eagerly sought after as an easily procurable article of food. The abundance of herrings and mackerel, for instance, on the coasts at regular seasons of the year, could not have failed to attract attention; and Swinden, in his History and Antiquities of Great Yarmouth, expresses his belief that the herring fishery began there soon after the year 495. In Scotland also there is evidence that the herring fishery was systematically carried on from a very early date. Precise records of other fisheries do not go back so far as that of the herring ; but there is no reason for believing that cod and kindred fishes were not taken by the hook and line very many centuries ago, and, like the herring, were subjected to some ready mode of curing either with salt or by drying in the open air. In comparatively recent times all the fisheries have been largely developed, and none more so than that known as beam- trawling, a method of fishing which had probably attracted little notice a hundred years ago, but is now the most regularly productive and important on the English coast. Many circumstances have combined to encourage the work ing of sea fisheries as a national industry. The great extent of coast-line surrounding the British Islands provides ready access to the sea to a numerous population who become familiar from their youth with seafaring pursuits ; and to such occupations large numbers betake themselves with instinctive aptitude, either as fishermen or sailors. In many cases early associations lead them to devote them selves to such fisheries as are within reach of their native villages ; in others, they may become alternately sailors and fishermen, shipping for a few months every year on a trad ing voyage, arid returning home in time to take part in the herring or some other temporary but profitable fishery; whilst in the case of the deep-sea trawling or cod fishery, they learn to become as good sailors as they are fishermen, for they have often to remain at sea in decked vessels for weeks at a time in all kinds of weather, they must keep on their fishing ground, and must trust to their knowledge of seamanship to battle with the furious gales to which they may be at any time exposed when thus far away from shelter. Inducements to become fishermen are not wanting to this coast population. Nowhere are the best kinds of sea fish more abundant than in temperate and moderately high latitudes ; and in this respect the British Islands are most advantageously situated, the seas surrounding them being frequented throughout the year by a variety of fishes always in request for the market, besides producing count less shoals of other kinds which only come within reach of the fishermen at particular seasons of the year. And great 1 For CORAL, PEARL, SALMON, SPONGE, and WHALE FISHERIES the reader is referred to those headings. as may sometimes be the supply offish during the continuance of favourable weather, it is rarely that the demand for it is exceeded at the present day ; for all the markets of the country are brought within reach by the facilities provided for rapid transport from the fishing ports by the extensive system of coast and inland railways now in operation. Fishermen, therefore, always find a market for their produce ; and although it is to be feared that many of them obtain but a small proportion of the price for which their fish is ultimately sold to the consumer, the majority of them are enabled to live more comfortably than formerly, and to save enough to keep their fishing gear in good working order, and in many cases to pay for improved and larger boats. There is no doubt that the fisheries fluctuate a good deal Fluctu- from year to year ; and it is often the case that they may ation of be good on one part of a coast when they are bad on another, fisheries. The important herring fishery on the coasts of Scotland is a marked example of this, as must be familiar to all persons who have given any attention to the subject. Thus it not unfrequently happens that when the fishery on the east side is particularly successful, a scarcity occurs on the west coast, or vice versa. Again, in some years the fish are equally abundant or scarce on both coasts. These fluctua tions are observed in even small districts of a line of coast, and one part of a season may be good and another bad in the same locality. Precisely the same variations occur on all the coasts of the British Islands, and with all kinds of fishes. Undoubtedly, weather is one of the most important elements in the question of success ; and a generally stormy season has a marked effect in the diminished quantity of fish landed. It tells both in reducing the number of fisher men at work, and in driving the fish from their usual haunts. It is only quite recently that attention has been directed to the subject of temperature as affecting the movements of certain fishes towards or from the surface of the sea, and this will be further noticed when we speak of the herring fisheries. Apparently trifling circumstances may in some cases materially affect the catch of fish. Thus the sean fishery for pilchards on the coast of Cornwall has fluctuated exceedingly during the last 50 or 60 years for which returns are in existence ; but however abundant these fish may be on the coast, the scans cannot catch them unless the shoals come quite close to the land in localities where these nets can be worked. Enormous hauls of pil chards have been made in particular years, whilst in others the fishermen have waited week after week without a chance of wetting their nets, although the drift-net fishermen at some little distance from the la&quot;nd have been meeting with fair success. The large apparent element of chance in the success of our fisheries cannot be better expressed than by the general hope of the fishermen for &quot; good luck.&quot; Great changes have taken place in the fishing trade Transport within the last 20 or 30 years, more especially in that for f ^h- fish sent fresh to the market. Excluding herrings and cod, which to a great extent were consigned to the curer as soon as possible after they were caught, a large proportion of the fish formerly taken on our coasts was disposed of within a short distance of the place where it was landed. A good many turbot and soles were forwarded by light carts or coaches to the nearest railways as these gradually extended in different directions from London ; but the people near the coast were, a generation or two ago, the principal consumers of fish, and the supply was compara tively scanty, for the fishing boats were small, and there was little inducement to fish on a large scale when the