Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/150

136 the net fastened to one end, is tied, at the other, to a post or rock, on the shore. The boat is then rowed to the extremity of the rope, when a pole, fixed there, and leaded heavily at the bottom, is thrown overboard. The rowers from this place make as nearly as possible a semicircle, two men continually and regularly putting the net into the water. When they come to the other end of the net, where there is another leaded pole, they throw that overboard. Another coil of rope, similar to the first, is, by degrees, thrown into the water, as the boatmen make for the shore. The crew now land, and with the assistance of persons stationed there, haul in each end of the net till they come to the two poles. The boat is then again pushed off towards the centre of the net, in order to prevent the more vigorous fish from leaping over the corks. By these means three or four hundred fish are often caught at one haul."

Mr. Couch has described a variation in the use of this net, by which, in deep water, it is cast around a shoal of Mackerel, so as to inclose it, as if with a circular wall: then the bottom being drawn together, it forms a deep and wide bag, out of which the fishes are dipped into the boats. The former mode is, however, the less expensive of the two.

The boats employed in the drift-fishing are carefully built, combining security with speed in a degree, perhaps, not surpassed by those of any other of our fisheries. They are usually about thirty feet in the keel, with great depth of waist, and breadth of beam; built of oak or ash timber,