120 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
capturing fish, as I have already treated it at great length in the first 
volume of the Reports of the U.S. Fish Commission. I may simply re- 
mark that the use of the net extends back to a very remote antiquity, 
possibly as great as that of the hook and line, if it be not still older. 
That the inhabitants of the pile dwellings of Switzerland and Central 
Europe used the net is shown by the finding of many specimens of the 
netting and the sinkers. The employment of the net by all civilized 
nations proves that it has been handed down to them from a high an- 
tiquity. The seine was used in the pre-Columbian epoch by the Indians 
of North America, as it is not unusual to find on the rivers and skores 
large numbers of small rounded stones, notched on two sides, to serve 
as weights, of precisely the same chazacter as those in use at the pres- 
ent time by the Indians of the northwest coast of America. 
The principal forms of the net are the hand or scoop-net, the dip-net, 
the casting-net, the seine, the trammel-net, the gill-net, the purse-net, 
and the stake-net. ; 
The scoop-net is familiar to every one. It has various shapes, and is 
used for landing fish caught with the hook, or capturing fish, particu- . 
larly the small varieties, penned up in restricted localities. 
The dip-net may be considered a modification of the scoop-net, being 
suspended at the end of along handle. 
The casting-net is largely in use by the Spaniards and Italians, both 
in Europe and America. This is cireular, varying in diameter from 12 
to 15feet. It has leaden balls around the edge, and a long rope attached 
to the center. This is thrown very skillfully to a considerable distance 
in such a way as to fall flat upon the water, and dropping rapidly to 
the bottom incloses any fish that may happen to be beneath it. When 
the rope is hauled on, the leaden balls at the edge come together at the 
bottom, so that the net is pursed up when drawn from the water, and 
the fish are found therein as in a pocket. 
The seine is also familiar to all. This is a continuous net, with floats 
of cork, glass balls, or light wood along the upper margin, and weights 
of lead or stone along the lower or bottom. Sometimes it has a bag in 
the center, for the greater facility of holding the fish. This net is some- 
times worked from the shore, one end being held on or near it, and the 
other carried around so as to form a sweep when the two ends are hauled 
in simultaneously. Sometimes this is dropped in the sea and made to 
inclose a school of fish. This becomes a purse-net when there is some 
arrangement for bringing the lower edge of the net together, like the 
’ inclosure at the mouth of a purse, so that the fish find themselves closely 
confined, both laterally and below. 
The trammel-net is a very efficient means for capturing fish in waters 
where dragging is not possible or convenient. This consists of three 
nets bound together at the edges, the outer ones on either side having 
a large mesh, and the central one a fine mesh and much fuller than 
the others. Fish swimming incautiously against this net pass through 

