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when tliey move on the bottom as they ought to, keep it down sufficiently. 
'Phe fishing-capacity seems, generally, not to be diminished at all by these 
seines, although we use the same equally large seine-bags; the meshes at 
the mouth only being sewn on to the head and foot ropes more stretched 
out, and the arms being almost cut oft. There is another rather considerable 
advantage which we get in this way; the boards, even if they are very 
large, and even if the crow-foot is somewhat long, cannot now be removed 
from one another so far that the fishing-capacity of the apparatus suffers 
from it. The head and foot ropes, stretched square out, will now always 
keep them in nearly the same distance from one another. 
2. In the beginning I had much difficulty in preventing the crow-foot 
from twisting, because there were turns in the towrope which, during the 
heaving-in, went down into the crow-foot. I tried to prevent this in various 
ways (see Report VIII, p. 17); but the hest way to avoid all twisting is by 
means of shackles, in the crow-foot as well as by the boards, particularly 
when there are ball-bearings in the shackles as in a cycle-crank. They are 
easily made, and work excellently. Add to this that, the more a steel-wire 
is used, the less of course will this twisting be. In Jo/m Bickerdyke's "Sea 
Fishing”, London 1895, p. 277 (The Badminton Library), there is a picture 
of a shackle for an otter-trawl, which will perhaps be still more practical. 
The arrangement for an otter-trawl, of which he gives a picture, loc. cit. 
p. 275, is, on the whole, very much like mine; but I have never beard 
that it has been much used anywhere. The method employed by the 
fishermen is at any rate different. 
3. Many investigators have found it very difficult to make the otter- 
seine follow the bottom, and if it does not, the rule is that nothing will be 
fished. This is indeed one of the greatest difficulties in all trawling. For 
it is often difficult to judge of the speed of the vessel over the ground, 
particularly when we have no landmark, or when we cannot moor a buoy, 
and then trawl with this in sight. If we cannot do so, and .if no land is 
to be seen near us, we are very hadly off on greater depths: The best 
advice I can give in such a case is to use heavy boards, the heavier the 
larger the vessel is, and, before the trawling, to make a haul with a dredge, 
partly to learn whether the bottom on the whole is suitable for trawling, 
partly, if possible, to learn something about the direction and speed of the 
current. Generally the vessels, especially the large ones, go too quickly 
over the bottom; under such circumstances it is enough for the trawl, if 
we only move across the bottom either by means of the current and wind 
alone, or with a little help from the engine. On the whole, seines with 
small meshes can never bear a great speed; the whole body of the water 
will then be carried along with, and nothing is caught. 
