54 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



sleeves — at Tahiti one was used in the form of a V — as 

 the fish congregate towards the centre, and its extremities 

 are pulled together by two boats rowing towards each other, 

 the towing boat being followed by a smaller vessel called 

 the follower. On the Cornish coast, when a shoal of 

 pilchards is expected, it is customary for a look-out man, 

 called the crier, to ascend an eminence overlooking the sea, 

 and to give notice of their approach by throwing up his 

 arms. Amongst the lines used at sea the principal are 

 the spiller and bulter, the former being employed for 

 whiting or other smaller fish, the latter for catching cod, 

 ling, halibut, and haddock. Fifteen dozen, with twenty-six 

 hooks a-piece, are sometimes attached to the Grimsby 

 smacks, the whole string being not less than seven miles in 

 length, and carrying with it 4680 instruments of death. 



Some years ago a great outcry was raised to the effect 

 that trawling was destroying the fisheries by stirring up 

 the spawn, and that the fishery grounds themselves 

 were undergoing the same process of depopulation as 

 the inland waters. In particular, difficulties arose with 

 the men of Tarbert and Oban, and a Commission having 

 been appointed to inquire into the matter, a sort of 

 Melian conference took place, related in a strictly Thucy- 

 didean manner by the Commissioners. The drift-net 

 fishermen and their supporters urged that immature 

 herrings may be caught by the method of seining ; that 

 the shoals of fish, being disturbed and dispersed by the 

 seine-nets on entering the estuaries from the sea, would 

 soon desert the waters, which they would otherwise 

 have frequented ; that the shoal once scattered does not 

 again unite ; that the seine fishers sweep across the beds 

 where the fish are depositing their spawn, and not only 

 take the spawning herring, but destroy the spawn which 



