FISHING NETS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE OTTER-TRAWL. 563 



the trawl was omitted, and the realisation of his ideas consequently 

 has fallen far short of the ordinary beam- or ottcr-trawl. 



The latter, it must be remembered, are the consummation of the 

 experience not of one or two types of fishing apparatus, but of all. 

 They are the successful and highly developed forms of a long series, so 

 that every little part and detail has come at some time under the 

 searching eye of experience. To realise their full worth, one must 

 hark back to the more primitive forms and retrace their development. 

 It is interesting to note that this is just what Dr. Petersen has done. 

 His so-called " otter drag-seine " and its subsequent alterations repeat, 

 to a certain extent, the history of the real otter-trmvl, and in his latest 

 work he has attained to the appreciation of the latter in all its parts. 



I have not the slightest doubt that Dr. Petersen, with his admirable 

 command of the English language, would be able to give a good account 

 of the English otter-trawl now that he has one in his possession, but 

 his distance from England, where the right names and the relative 

 importance of the various parts might be explained to him, constitute 

 a great difficulty. It seems more appropriate, therefore, that a detailed 

 description should come from the English side. 



As stated above, the otter-travjl is the last of a long series of 

 successful and unsuccessful experiments with fishing gear. I think 

 it advisable, therefore, to preface its description with a brief reference 

 to past history and to the various forms of apparatus used in this 

 and in other countries. Not knowing these, one would be unable to 

 appreciate the finer details of the otter-traivl and the advance it has 

 made from the more primitive types. 



The numerous forms of fishing apparatus may be classified accord- 

 ing to the mode of working them — fixed nets, if they are moored to the 

 beach, or at the bottom of the sea ; movable nets, if they are dragged 

 through the water. 



The simplest form of the fixed nets is a dam of stones or rushes 

 between tide-marks leading down into a simple " pound " also made 

 of rushes. More advanced forms are seen in the eel-traps of Holland,* 

 the " fyke-nets " and " weirs " of America,! and the salmon stake-nets 

 of Scotland. In all, the principle is the same. A "leader" of net- 

 work, in some cases two, is placed across the direction in which the 

 fish are supposed to travel, and guides them into a cunningly con- 

 structed labyrinth, from which they cannot escape. In rocky parts 

 the leader is removed, and the " pound " simply moored off the rocks 

 in deep water. It may seem strange that the openings, which are 

 of good size, cannot be used by the fish for exit as well as entry, 



* The inshore fisliing apparatus of the Netherlands. Mededeel over Visscherij, 1899. 

 t " Fjke-nets," Bull. U.S. Fish Commission, xii., 1892. 



KEW SERIES. — VOL. VI. NO. 4. 2 P 



