FISHES AND MANKIND 



391 



lining, each method involving the use of a particular kind of 

 gear and designed to catch particular kinds offish. In 1926 

 the quantity of wet fish of British taking landed in Great 

 Britain by each method of fishing was: trawl, 9,481,000 cwts; 

 drift, 7,853,000 cwts.; fines, 993.000 cwts.; and Danish Seine 

 Qt:,S 000 cwts. The trawlers, seiners, and hners take chietly 

 demersal fish such as the Cod, Haddock, Hake, Halibut, Plaice, 

 and Sole, known to the trade as "white fish," while the drifters 

 capture pelagic fish fike the Herring, Pilchard, and Mackerel. 



The trawl (Figs. 137, 138) is a net of flattened conical shape, 

 sometimes as much as one hundred feet in length, with a wide 

 mouth at one end and tapering at the other to the "purse or 

 "cod-end." This great bag is dragged slowly along the sea 



Fig. 138. 

 Steam Trawler fishing with Otter Trawl, and with net hauled. 



bottom by means of strong "warps" attached to a powerful 

 steam winch on the ship, and the fish, once they are in the net, 

 are prevented from swimming out again by special yalve-iike 

 devices The "foot-rope," forming the lower edge of the mouth 

 of the net, may play an important part in stirring up the hsh, 

 particularly those hke the Flat-fishes, which he buried in the 

 sand. In the "beam trawl" (Fig. 137B), now used only by 

 saihng vessels, the upper edge of the mouth-opening is formed 

 by a stout wooden beam, anything from forty to fifty teet in 

 length at either end of which are D-shaped iron runners, the 

 "shoes" or "trawl-heads," to which the towing warps are 

 attached. The "otter trawl" (Fig. 137A) has no such frame 

 round the mouth of the net, which is here kept open by two 

 large "doors" or "otters," constructed of heavy, iron-bound 

 wood, from eight to nine feet in length and four or five feet high. 



