view raw text
SEA EXPLOSIVES AND SEA FISH Writing of the effect of submarines explosive and protection against them of the same nature an English writer has this to print printSea Sea fishes are mostly caught on or near their bre d ing grounds That is why nearly every fresh herring has a roe in it It is this collection of the fih for a fixed purpose that makes it possible to catch them in numbers That is where the shoals are there will the nets follow and there would be no shoals but for the breeding instincts If it were not thus it would be as unusual to catcli a herring as a salmon in the open ocean In their case it is the breeding instinct that brings them up to the mouths of rivers and makes fishing for them worth while When they are so collected a small charge of explosive in the water will kill them all and enable a poacher to lift them out by hand and they are in no way injured as food fishes But that explosion has not stopped at killing good food for men It has also killed all other fishes within si wide range of it It has killed the infants among fishes and worse than that all the food of fishes When the war began I pointed to the fact of the torpedo and the bursting shells under water as the unavoidable waste of fish food and fish life possibly for years to come Then sea battles began and waves of dead aud floating fishes polluted the ocean It may be years before the sea recovers its output So niuch depends upon the possibility that where fishes congregate to breed they do not feed or not necessarily feed Take the salmons known habits as an example Nobody knows his feeding life in the sea but wo all know his breeding life
