DIFFERENT WAYS OF SWIMMING 



stay. A trap which is at the same time a profitable 

 preserve, since the prisoners are more favoured there 

 than in their native sea and find food and shelter 

 ready and waiting for them. Small when they first 

 arrive, they grow without hindrance, and, space for 

 space, their serried ranks are more numerous and 

 better nourished than in the sea. For the most part, 

 therefore, catching them is a simple matter. All that 

 is necessary is to attach to the barrier which bars the 

 entrances, chambers divided into compartments, and 

 into these the fish go of their own accord when they 

 are trying to find their way to the sea. 



During the hours when the current is flowing in, 

 these fish, drawn to the waters of the sea, leave the 

 farther parts of the lake and make for the entrances. 

 The barrier stops them, and they go along it until 

 they come to the opening of one of the chambers. 

 Into it they go and, thenceforward, their doom is 

 sealed. One after another, sometimes more or some- 

 times less, according to the time of year or the weather, 

 they find their way into the final compartment and 

 there are imprisoned. They are caught automatically, 

 without the intervention of any man, victims of cir- 

 cumstance if ever there were any. The fish, shut up 

 in a closed narrow box, instead of finding their way 

 to the sea, accumulate in masses, without hope of 

 escape. The fishermen have only to make the round 

 of these chambers each day, and so gather a harvest 

 with their landing nets. They catch masses of fish 

 which they would never have been able to catch in any 

 other way except with the expenditure of vastly more 

 time and considerable difficulty. Efficient and pro- 

 ductive fisheries of this type are used throughout the 

 Mediterranean wherever there are similar pools com- 

 municating with the sea. They are known as crawls. 

 That of Lake Bibans is one of the largest and best 

 equipped. Some days a ton or more of different 

 kinds of fish are taken from its chambers. 

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