By far the most productive of our fishing-grounds, although not as predominant as it was some years ago, is the North Sea--an area of more than 150,000 square miles, in which are taken more than half of all the British-caught fish, not including shell-fish, which are annually landed on the coasts of England and Wales. More fish are brought, every year, into Grimsby, Hull, Lowestoft, and Yarmouth than into all the other fishing-ports of England put together. It is interesting to note that, while according to the latest returns there were 1731 British steam-trawlers and drifters, exclusive of ordinary fishing-boats, engaged in the North Sea fisheries, there were only 451 similar craft belonging to the ports of Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France put together. In other words there are four British steam-trawlers in the North Sea to every foreigner. Much fishing is also done by English trawlers off the shores of Iceland, Norway, and the Faroës, and the boats now go as far even as the White Sea and the coast of Morocco. About half the fish are taken by trawling, which consists in dragging a beam of wood, with a net attached to it, along the bottom of the sea, in comparatively shallow water. Very many different species are caught in this way, but haddock, plaice, and cod are by far the most numerous, and make up between them nearly half the total amount of all the fish landed in England and Wales in a year. Much fishing is also done with seine nets, or with drift nets, both of which are long nets, attached to floats of cork or to air-bladders and let down into the sea without regard to the depth, and sometimes at a considerable distance from the shore. Stake nets, fastened to poles fixed in shallow water near the land, are also much used. Herrings are the chief fish caught in drift nets and seines, and more of them are landed than of any other kind of fish. The latest return gives the total quantity of herrings annually brought into English ports as rather more than 200,000 tons, of cod as about 100,000 tons, and of plaice as about 50,000 tons. Pilchards, which are full-grown sardines, and much resemble herrings in appearance, are caught in large quantities--which, however, seem trifling in comparison with those of the three fish named above--in seine nets off the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, and nowhere else in the British Isles. Many fish, especially halibut, cod, and ling are taken with hook and line, sometimes at great depths. Crabs and lobsters are caught in wicker traps or baskets called pots, and oysters are usually taken by dredging. [Illustration: Fish Market at Brixham]