Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/232

Rh government from Banjaluka, which was dangerously near the Hungarian frontier, and the Turkish governors, officially styled “ valis of Hungary,” ruled in Travnik from 1686 to 1850.

Several interesting villages, none containing more than a few hundred inhabitants, are grouped together, near Travnik. Prozor, with its ruined citadel, which withstood the Turkish advance until the beginning of the 16th century, when almost the whole of Bosnia had been enslaved, was then the capital of the princes of Rama, district lying north-west of the Narenta. The thermal station of Kiseljak, where the Fojnica and Lepenica rivers meet, is a cluster of old fashioned Turkish villas, with a casino, baths, barracks, hotels and park. In 1396, Tvrtko I. of Bosnia granted the privilege of silver-mining here to the Ragusans. Remains of old workings may still be seen. Kresevo, 5 m. N.N.E., is likewise rich in iron, cinnabar, quicksilver and the argentiferous load which was worked by the Saxons in the middle ages. The citadel of Zahor, or Gradina, now a ruin, guarded the mines. Bugojno, on the Vrbas, is a picturesque place, with a large cattle and horse trade. The Franciscan monastery of Fojnica, 18 m. east, is the largest and wealthiest foundation in Bosnia. Its Byzantine church is full of ancient ornaments and relics. The archives contain many valuable manuscripts, including a charter bestowed on the monks, in 1463 by the Sultan Mahomet II.

TRAWLING, SEINING AND NETTING. The innumerable kinds of fishing nets which may be distinguished, if all nets differing in details of structure or use be placed in separate classes, fall naturally into two main groups, namely stationary nets and nets used in motion. The former group contains the most primitive nets, though nets of great complexity are now included in it; and the simplest fixed nets, themselves derived probably from dams of rushes or stones so placed as to lead fish in to a “pound” or enclosure, may with some confidence be considered as the ancestors of the great otter trawls now shot and towed daily from powerful steamers on fishing grounds more than a thousand miles from the market they work to supply. The more primitive fixed nets are of far less importance than movable nets (except in the capture of certain particular species), owing to the fact that they are necessarily confined to very shallow water. The main types of movable nets may therefore be treated first.

All nets are constructed in accordance with what is known of the habits of the fish they are designed to capture; and as fishes may be roughly divided into those spending at least the greater part of their lives on or near the sea-bottom and those spending a great portion of their lives near the surface, two lines have been followed in the development of nets, some being designed to work on the bottom, others to work near the surface. The most important nets used in the capture of “demersal” or bottom living fishes are trawls; the most important pelagic nets are driftnets. The word trawling was at one time applied to more than one method of fishing, but has, at all events in Europe, now become restricted to the operation of a fattened conical net or trawl, dragged along the sea-bottom. There are two trawls in common use, the beam trawl and the otter trawl. They differ in the method adopted for extending the mouth of the net. The original form is the beam trawl.

The beam trawl may be described as a flattened conical net whose mouth is kept open when in use by a long beam supported at the ends by iron runners, the trawl-heads. Elm is generally preferred for the beam, selected if possible from timber grown just to the proper thickness, that the natural strength of the wood may not be lessened by more trimming or chipping than is absolutely necessary. If the required length and thickness cannot be obtained in one piece, two or even three pieces are scarfed together, and the joints secured by iron bands. The trawl-heads differ somewhat in form in different countries and in different localities. The usual form is heart shaped, the “ shoe " or part actually in contact with the ground when in use being straight, the after-side straight and sloping upwards from the hindmost point or “ heel,” and then curving down in a single unbroken arc, which forms the front of the head, to join the shoe. In the Barking pattern the head is stirrup shaped; but this is now unusual. A square socket is bolted to the top of the head (taking the head to be in the position of use) to receive the end of the beam, and ring-bolts are put in at the extreme front of each head, to hold the ropes or wires by which the trawl is towed, and, within the point of the heel, for the purpose of allowing the mouth of the net to be seized or lashed to the trawl-head at a point close to the ground. The shoe of the trawl-head is in the full-sized trawls made of double thickness, to resist wear.

When the net is spread out in the position it would take up when working, the upper part or back has its straight front edge fastened to the beam, but the corresponding lower part or belly is cut away in such a manner that the front margin forms a deep curve extending from the shoe of one trawl-head to that of the other, the centre of the curve or “ bosom,” as it is called, being at a considerable distance behind the beam. The usual rule in English trawls is for the distance between the beam and the centre of the bosom to be about the same as the length of the beam. In French trawls this distance is generally much less; but in all cases the beam and back of the net must pass over a considerable space of ground when the trawl is at work before the fish are disturbed by much of the lower margin of the net. This lower edge of the mouth of the trawl is fastened to and protected by the “ ground-rope,” which is made of an old hawser “ rounded ” or covered with small rope to keep it from chafing, and to make it heavier. The ends of the ground rope are fastened at each side by a few turns round the back of the trawl-heads, just above the shoe, and the rope itself rests on the ground throughout its entire curve. The fish which may be disturbed by it have therefore no chance of escape at either the sides or top of the net unless they can pass through the meshes, and as the outlet under the beam is a long way past them, and is steadily moving on, sooner or later they mostly pass over the ground rope and find their way into the funnel-shaped end of the net, from which a small valve of netting prevents their return.

It must not be supposed, of course, that all fishes entering a trawl are retained in it. Numerous investigations have been made into the size and number of the various species of fish which get through the meshes of the trawl, by lacing small-meshed netting over the ordinary net, and examining the fish remaining in this outer net. Fish are found to escape all parts of the net, but chiefly the “batings,” i.e. the part of the net where it is narrowing to the “cod end "; and as the chance of escape depends on the size and shape of the fish, and the mesh of the net, it is naturally found that the maximum size of the individuals which can escape in any numbers differs in different species. If small fish are on the ground, the total number escaping is, however, in all cases very large, frequently greatly exceeding the number caught. This is for the most part desirable, the fish being of a size to render them of but little value to the fishermen or to the public. It is in any case inevitable, since a full-sized trawl made entirely of small-mesh would offer so great a resistance to the water as to be unworkable.

The ground-rope bears directly on the ground, and to prevent the possibility of the fish passing under it, the rope should have some weight in it so as to “bite” well, or press the ground closely. It is, however, always made of old material, so that it may break in case of getting foul of rocks or such other chance obstruction as may be met with on the generally smooth ground where the trawl can only be worked with advantage. If in such a contingency the rope were so strong and good as not to break, there would be serious danger of the tow-rope snapping, and then the whole apparatus might be lost; but the ground-rope giving way enables the net to be cleared and hauled up with probably no more damage to it than the broken rope and perhaps some torn netting. The remaining part of the trawl, extending from the bosom to the extreme end, forms a complete bag gradually diminishing in breadth to within about the last 10 ft., which part is called the “ cod or purse,” and is closed by a draw-rope or “ codline " at the extremity when the net is being used. To avoid the abrasion of the under part of the cod-end pressed by the weight of fish against the stones and shells of the sea-bottom, stout pieces of old net are laced across beneath it in parallel strips. These strips thus trail beneath the trawl and protect it. They constitute the “ rubbers " or “ false belly.” The cod-end is the general receptacle for the various fishes which enter the net; and when the trawl is hauled up and got on board the vessel, the draw-rope is cast off and the fish all fall out on the deck.

It has been mentioned that the body of the net tapers away to the entrance to the purse. It is at this point the opening of the pockets are placed; and they are so arranged that the fish having passed into the purse, and then seeking to escape by returning along its sides, are pretty sure to go into the pockets, which extend for a length of about 15 or 16 ft. along the inner side of the body of the net, and there, the more they try to press forward, the more tightly they become packed, as the pockets gradually narrow away to nothing at their upper or front extremity. These pockets are not separate parts of the trawl, but are made by merely lacing together the back and belly of the net, beginning close to the margin or side nearly on a level with the bosom, and then being carried on with slowly increasing breadth backward as far as the entrance to the purse. At this point the breadth of the net is divided into three nearly equal spaces, the central one being the opening from the main body of the net into the purse, or general receptacle for the fish, which must all pass through it, and those on each side being the mouths of the pockets facing the opposite direction. The central