1892-93.] 



NOTES ON THE WESTERN DEN^S. 



159 



The meshes of the sturgeon net are about ten inches square, while 

 those of the beaver nets are based on the distance between the tip of the 

 thumb and that of the index finger when both are outstretched. The 

 width of any kind of fish-net of the larger variety corresponds with that 

 of seventeen meshes of the same net. The nets intended for smaller fish 

 have their meshes from ^ of an inch to one inch and a half square. 

 About tv/enty of the former dimensions form the width of the net. All 

 kinds of drag-nets measure at least one hundred feet in length. 



Among the Tsekehne both hands outstretched wuth the thumbs tip to 

 tip are the standard measure for the width of the beaver net. Large 

 nets require twelve such units, while the smaller ones have only nine, or 

 thereabouts. Such nets never exceed twenty-five feet in length. 



Identical in netting are the two kinds of dip-nets * in use among the 

 Carriers. The first (fig. 152) serves either to catch salmon or to scoop 

 out the smaller fish which periodically swarm up certain shallow streams. 

 When doing service against salmon, it is dipped in the water and then 

 left until a capture is effected. But if used to catch small fish, it is 

 managed as a ladle. Its make will be easily understood by a glance at 

 the above figure. It is from five to six feet deep. 



Fig. 153 represents a smaller variety of the dip-net. It serves in a 

 few places only, and, as a rule, its period of usefulness does not exceed 

 four or five days in one year. During the first warm days of each 

 recurring spring, immense numbers of the thcjmdk, the very small fish 

 which we have already mentioned in another chapter, ascend to the 

 surface of the water in a few lakes and become an easy prey to the 

 Indian women who, armed with this net, scoop out canoe loads of it in 



* Pe'-th^Viaih, " wherewith one scoops," a verbal noun. 



