Distinctions may be drawn, as will be seen, between the nature and methods of the fisheries on the various coasts, and the relative prosperity of the industry from year to year cannot be considered as a whole. Thus in the period considered the recorded maximum weight of fish landed at the east coast ports was 9,539,114 cwt. in 1903 (the value being returned as £5,721,105); whereas on the south coast it was 736,599 cwt. in 1899, and on the west 1,117,164 cwt. in 1898. Considered as a whole, the individual fish, by far the most important in the English fisheries, is the herring, for which Yarmouth and Lowestoft are the chief ports. The next in order are haddock, cod and plaice, and the east coast fisheries return the greatest bulk of these also. But whereas the south coast has the advantage over the west in the herring and plaice fisheries, the reverse is the case in the haddock and cod fisheries, haddock, in particular, being landed in very small quantities at the south coast ports. Mackerel, however, are landed principally at the southern ports, and the pilchard is taken almost solely off the south-western coast. A fish of special importance to the west coast fisheries is the hake. Among shell-fish, crabs and oysters are taken principally off the east coast; the oyster beds in the shallow water off the north Kent and Essex coasts, as at Whitstable and Colchester, being famous. Lobsters are landed in greatest number on the south coast. The number of vessels of every sort employed in fishing was returned in 1903 as 9721, and the number of persons employed as 41,539, of whom 34,071 were regular fishermen. The development of the steam trawling-vessel is illustrated by the increase in numbers of these vessels from 480 in 1893 to 1135 in 1903. They belong chiefly to North Shields, Hull, Grimsby, Yarmouth and Lowestoft. There are a considerable number on the west coast, but very few on the south. These vessels have a wide range of operations, pursuing their work as far as the Faeroe Islands and Iceland on the one hand, and the Bay of Biscay and the Portuguese coast on the other. Freshwater fisheries.