CHAP. VL. | DEEP-SEA DREDGING. 237 
is conceivable to them that they may be devils of 
some kind which may have the power in some occult 
way of influencing them and the results of their 
fishing. I believe, however, that with the progress 
of education this notion is dying out in most places, 
and that now fewer rarities and novelties are lost 
because it is ‘unlucky’ to keep them in the boat. 
The naturalist’s dredge does not appear to have 
been systematically used for investigating the fauna 
of the bottom of the sea, until it was employed by 
Otho Frederick Miller in the researches which 
afforded material for the publication in 1779 of his 
admirable ‘Descriptions and History of the rarer and 
less known Animals of Denmark and Norway.” In 
the preface to the first volume Miller gives a quaint 
account of his machinery and mode of working which 
it is pleasant to read. 
The first paragraph quoted gives a description of a 
dredge not very unlike that used by Ball and Forbes 
(Fig. 44), only the mouth of the dredge seems to 
have been square, a modification of the ordinary 
form which we find useful for some purposes still, 
but in most cases it gives fatal facilities for ‘ wash- 
ing out’ in the process of hauling in. 
** Praecipuum instrumentum, quo fundi maris et 
sinuum incolas extrahere conabar, erat Sacculus re- 
ticularis, ex funiculis cannabinis concinnatus, mar- 
gine aperturae alligatusla minis quatuor ferreis ora 
exteriori acutis, vinam longis, quatuor vncias latis, 
et in quadratum dispositis. Angulis laminarum ex- 
surgebant quatuor bacilli ferrei, altera extremitate in 
annulum liberum iuncti. Huic annectitur funis du- 
centarum et plurium orgyarum longitudine. Saccus 
