FISHING STATIONS— ENGLAND. 197 



tiller. In winter a stump mizenmast is used, but is 

 shifted in suiinner for one with a standing topmast, so 

 that a topsail may be carried. It is the custom to have 

 several higs of different size, the smaller ones being set 

 on either mast, according to the weather ; this is pre- 

 ferred to the ordinary practice of reefing, which, how- 

 ever, can also be done if necessary. Different classes 

 of boats are professedly used for mackerel, herrings, 

 and ijilchards; but the largest boats are fitted out with 

 nets for the three kinds of fish, and the herring boats 

 have both herring and pilchard gear ; the regular pil- 

 chard boats are the smallest, and have only their proper 

 nets. The number of hands carried by each boat depends 

 partly on her size and partly on the kind of fishing she 

 is engaged in ; the smallest boats have three men and a 

 boy; the herring boats have an extra man; and the 

 mackerel boats, when engaged in herring fishing, carry 

 five men and a boy, their full complement being seven 

 hands, which all the larger fishing boats take when they 

 go after herrings to the Irish and North Sea fisheries. 

 The first cost of the three classes of boats properly 

 fitted out with nets ranges from about 120/. to nearly 

 600/. 



Line-fishing is very general along the coast, but it is 

 mostly by handlines ; the boats comiug to anchor at some 

 miles off the land, and the distance at which they fish 

 varying with the season. Whiting, bream, gurnards, 

 and many other kinds of fish are taken in this manner. 

 Trammels, in some places called "tumbling-nets,"^ are 

 also sometimes used ; and the rocky western coast har- 

 bours a great many crabs and lobsters, which are taken 

 in the well-known circular " pots," or baskets^ with the 

 entrance at the top. 



^ See Trainniels, p. 175, 



