THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 153 



ing persons have begun to fish with nets composed of 

 narrower meshes, and even with trawl-nets (schrobnetteii) " ; 

 and as by the former proceeding fry offish are killed, while the 

 latter destroys the spawn, and even the bait on which fish 

 live, both are prohibited -by the placard just quoted. An 

 exception to this law was made on January 22nd, 1677,* in 

 favour of those who should fish for shrimps within the 

 sand-bars, with a light ground-net (ligte sayingh of corde}. 

 Bars of movable sand do indeed exist to this day close 

 under the whole of the North Sea coast. " Sayingh " (now 

 spelt saayeui], is the name still used for the shrimp-net, 

 which is indeed a kind of trawl. The sense of the word 

 corde is explained in the first legislative act in which the 

 implement is mentioned, viz., a placard dated April iQth, 

 1583,1 by which it is forbidden to fish with this net in the 

 river estuaries, and in which it is described as a net kept open 

 by a beam and burdened with stones or lead, which is 

 dragged along the bottom of the water behind a fishing 

 vessel. " Corde," in short, is an equivalent for the now 

 common word " schrobnet," and a general term for any 

 trawling apparatus. 



The permission to use the shrimp trawl was not the 

 only mitigation grafted in 1677 upon the law of the 

 preceding year. It was likewise permitted to use " sole- 

 nets " (tongewanf] the meshes of which measured "a two- 

 and-thirty' ! being apparently a smaller dimension than 

 the " eight-and-twenty ' adopted as a minimum size in 

 16764 But the use of all trawl-nets other than the 



* Gr. PL Boek, iii. p. 1367. 



f Ibid. i. p. 1274. 



% It appears from these denominations that the dimensions of the 

 meshes were indicated by the number of them which went to some 

 standard measure. And it may therefore be supposed, although 1 



E. 8. M 



