288 THE SEAS 



twenty -five to thirty boats and 150 to 200 men to look 

 after it. This is a huge bag net 900 feet long with a mouth 

 250 feet wide and 125 feet deep ; the wings of this net 

 which stretch out on either side in front of the mouth may 

 be as much as 3,000 feet in length. It is used for catching 

 the yellow-tail or amber-fish. 



Hand-lining is a common practice among inshore fisher- 

 men, and long lines on the same style as those used in the 

 cod fisheries are also employed. Lines may also be set in 

 the sand at low-water mark which are covered by the rising 

 tide and can be taken up when the water has again receded. 



Many fish such as mackerel and pollack can be caught by 

 trailing a shining spinner behind a boat, and one man can 

 operate as many as four lines. 



Whale Fisheries 



Whale hunting has been popular for many centuries, but 

 probably the first real whaling industry was founded 

 by the Basques of southern France and northern 

 Spain. This fishery was situated in the Bay of Biscay, 

 and was started in the tenth century when the Atlantic 

 Right Whale, or Biscay Whale, was the object of pursuit. 

 From the tenth to the sixteenth centuries the fishery was 

 centred round the towns of Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean de 

 Luz, and San Sebastian and from here the rest of Europe 

 was supplied with whalebone and oil. 



The whole history of the whale fisheries has been one long 

 story of extinction through man's want of thought for the 

 future, and by the sixteenth century the Biscay Whale 

 was becoming very scarce, and possibly shyer, and the 

 Basques had to go farther afield in their chase, often voyag- 

 ing as far as the coasts of Newfoundland. 



About the sixteenth century the existence of the Green- 

 land whale became known, and Europeans turned their 



