382 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



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cautious manipulation of the tackle, the loop encircles the iish, is tightened by a sud- 

 den pull, and the victim landed flopping on the bank. We know from personal 

 experience that nature lias produced fish stupid enough to be taken in that manner. 



Along with the spear and the snare some sort of a hook may have been devised, 

 but we imagine that it was in the form of a gaff, and that the fishing industry was in 

 a more advanced condition before the fish hook, as we now know it, came into use. 



The habit of many slow-moving fishes to rest lazily on the gravelly beds of shal- 

 low rivers, and of others to congregate at the head waters of streams in spawning 

 season, and of still others to take temporary shelter in quiet nooks behind the rocks 

 while ascending rapids, must have suggested the use of the dip net — first made, we may 

 suppose, of woven grass attached to a bent sapling, afterward of leathern thongs or 

 some stout vegetable fiber twisted into cord of suitable size and knotted into meshes. 



All of these methods contemplated the capture of such fish as might be found in 

 shallow water and in plain sight of the fisherman. Then we imagine arose thegeuius 

 who first conceived the idea of luring the fish out of the safe places and inviting him 

 to destruction by the offer of tempting food. We may suppose that bait was first 

 used to attract the fish within range of the spear, and that afterward, as the result of 

 another inspiration it was attached to a hook which the victim might take into his 

 mouth. This was a tremendous advance in the development of fishing methods. 

 Surely the catches increased enormously and intelligence of the new device must have 

 spread rapidly among the tribes. We may confidently believe that at this time some 

 of the old men seeing the jubilant and heavily laden fishermen returning day after day 

 from the fishing grounds originated the remark which has been handed down through 

 the ages and which in its simplest form runs about like this: "If this thing keeps on 

 the good fish will all be caught out of the water in about three years. 1 ' Yet notwith- 

 standing the dire predictions of disaster there was probably no appreciable diminution 

 in the supply of fish, and the ingenuity of the fisherman continued to exercise itself 

 in devising ways and means to still further augment the catch. It occurred to some 

 one to apply the lure, or bait, in combination with the dip net; that is, to set a baited 

 net of similar shape in the water resting on the bottom, to be suddenly raised when a 

 number offish had collected above the netting and were busily dissecting the food. 



The time came when the possibility of capturing by one operation a large number 

 of those fish which periodically visit the coasts and rivers in immense schools attracted 

 the studious attention of the ambitious fisherman* These fish would not go to the 

 bottom to feed on bait deposited in his dip net. Then, instead of spreading the net 

 beneath them, why not throw it over them? This clever idea resulted in the device 

 known as the cast net, which, from all the references to fishing nets in ancient writings, 

 we believe to have been one of the earliest devices used by those to whom fishing was 

 a means of livelihood. Vet it is not by any means one of the simplest devices, for the 

 successful application of it requires great skill. 



Another fisherman who seems to have lived before people began to record impor- 

 tant events, devised the sweep seine. This form of apparatus may have been adopted 

 either as a means of stopping and encircling large numbers of school fish passing along 

 the coast, or as a method of capturing such fish as might be feeding upon grounds 

 easily swept or dragged by a net of its character. 



It was perhaps observed by some of the earlier seine fishermen that the immense 

 schools of fish journeying along the coasts at certain times and seasons were often 



