Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/46

32 from the fact that many of the most valuable Fishes have the habit of herding together in shoals. The engraving, copied from an Egyptian sepulchre, represents a very ancient form of drag-net used in the Nile; the fishers are stationed in part on the bank of the river, and in part on board of their fishing-boat, on the rigging of which the fishes are seen hanging up to dry for preservation.

Fishing by means of nets is frequently alluded to in the Scriptures, and in particular, it was the mode practised by several of the disciples of our blessed Lord, both before and after their sacred association with Him. The lovely Sea of Galilee often bore upon its waves the Son of Man, who, seated in the fishing-vessel of John or Simon, cheered their toil with His gracious words, as they launched out into the deep, and let down their nets for a draught.

Many are the varieties of this important accessory to human industry, the fishing-net; from the hoop-cast, which the fisher throws by hand over the surface-swimming fry to secure bait, to the elaborate tonnaro of the Italian shores, a mile in length. Most of those kinds, the pursuit of which is sufficiently important to be styled a fishery, are taken by nets of some kind or other. Thus on our own coasts, the Mackerel, the Herring, and the Pilchard, are taken chiefly by drift-nets, that is, nets of great length suspended perpendicularly from near the surface by a rope, to which corks are attached, and kept extended by a buoy, at one end; and by the fishing-boat riding on it, as if on her cable, at the other. The Sprat and the Whitebait are taken by