Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/131

Rh to eighteen feet and a correspondent bulk, and usually swims in large shoals, ranging near the shore, the pursuit of the species forms one of the most valuable fisheries of the south of Europe. The circumstances attending its capture, as recorded by MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes, are so interesting that we make no apology for presenting them to our readers. These fishes are taken in two principal modes. In the one, whenever a sentinel, posted on an eminence for the purpose, has indicated to the fishermen that the Tunnies are coming, and has shown the direction of their approach, a number of boats set off under the command of a captain, and having arranged themselves in a semicircle, unite their nets to form a common enclosure. The Tunnies, alarmed, huddle together in closer array, while the line of nets being rapidly lengthened by additions at each end, gradually drives the shoal more and more in shore. At length, when the fishes have been forced so near the land, that the water is only a few fathoms deep, the fishermen cast a large net terminating in a lengthened conical pocket; this they presently haul on shore inclosing the whole shoal of fishes. The largest are killed while in the water, with poles and gaffs, the small ones are carried up to the beach in the fishermen's arms. Fifteen tons' weight of Tunnies are sometimes taken at a single haul in this manner, on the coast of Languedoc.

The other mode of fishing is with a complex apparatus of nets, called by the French the madrague, by the Italians, the tonnaro. It is an expensive afiair, consisting of a double row of large long nets, made to hang vertically in the water by