^ 



(b) Method of Fishing the Lagoon-ponds. 



The capture of the fishes reared in the lagoons is on 

 a scale of such magnitude that ordinary fishing methods 

 do not suffice ; 1,000 tons of fish have often been taken 

 in a single season. The fishing period is usually con- 

 fined to the months of October, November, and Dec- 

 ember, when the instinct of the confined fishes, of the 

 adult eels in particular, is insistent for migration to the 

 sea. Last year the season opened exceptionally early 

 having already been some weeks in full swing at the 

 time of my visit on 29th September. The catadromic 

 instinct seems indeed to be developed considerably 

 earlier in the year in eels living in the Comacchio lagoon 

 than in those of the adjoining Venetian lagoons, where 

 the migratory instinct is developed in eels at the end of 

 autumn as in the case of these fishes in French and 

 English streams. Samaritani states that long experience 

 and many observations have demonstrated that in the 

 Comacchio lagoon, where the water is always very 

 different in density from that of the sea, especially during 

 the heats of summer, shoals of adult eels crowd around 

 the tressa palisades sometimes as early as the months of 

 June and July attracted thereto by the percolation of 

 sea-water through the hed^e of reeds. Indeed with 

 such energy do they attempt the passage of the barrier 

 that nets have to be placed in the channel behind the 

 tressa and it appears probable that many do actually 

 escape. As to the mullet, their instinct to make for the 

 sea begins to be active early in August.* 



Usually the commencement of the great fishing 

 season is postponed till the end of September when 

 high spring tides and gales from the eastward may be 

 expected — two of the principal factors in inducing a 

 heavy run of fish into the fish-pounds. Several weeks 

 prior to what is termed the taglio delle valli, the 

 removal of a short section in each tressa palisade to 

 form an aperture of restricted width to permit the escape 

 seawards of the adult fish within the ponds, every 

 fishing station throughout the lagoon becomes the scene 

 of great activity. The whole staff engages upon the 



* G. Samaritani. Prowedimenti necessari nella Laguna di Comacchio, 

 p. 18. Venice, 1899. 



