NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



see a dam of loosely placed bowlders, 1 juilt across a clear, 

 running stream at the point where the riffle is most 

 marked. A square wooden frame, wedged tightly into 

 an open space in the dam, holds the wide mouth of a 

 funnel-shaped fishing-net which is stretched backward 

 against the current, and is fastened to a stake at the 

 tapering point. Midway, the net narrows to a small 

 circular opening that leads into the meshed pouch at 

 the net's end which forms the trap. The fish, swimming 

 up against the stream, as is their wont, enter the large 

 square frame, and pass through the small inner circular 

 door, and so are bagged. The farmer lads, who mostly 

 practised this sort of fishing in those days, called the 

 contrivance a "set-net." 



How like the method of our hydropsy chid larva! — 

 only, it reverses the position of the net, and traps its 

 prey as they move with the current, not against it. Is 

 it strange that these structures should have suggested 

 the set-net fishing of boyhood experience? Here is one 

 before me, placed at the end of a conical, basket-like 

 frame whose bowed ribs are tiny sprays of grass bent 

 and lashed together by silken ropelets. It is rarely 

 human in its style! — as though it might have been the 

 work of veritable fairies. 



The nets are irregular in shape, the average of several 

 measured being one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch 

 long and wide. The minute meshes are as regularly 

 shaped as those of our own hand-knitted fishing-nets, 

 and are of the same form. One net numbered about 

 eight hundred within the above space. Perhaps one 

 may appreciate the delicacy of touch and the machine- 

 like accuracy shown in weaving this dainty, lacelike 

 work if he will mark off a block a quarter of an inch 



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