CHAP. VI.] 



LOCHFYNE. 



249 



This formidable apparatus, which forms a great perforated 

 wall, being let into the sea immediately after sunset, floats or 

 drifts with the tide, so as to afford the herring an opportunity 

 of striking against it, and so becoming captured in fact they 

 are drowned in the nets. The boats engaged in the drift-net 

 fishing are of various sizes, and are strongly and carefully 



VIEW OF LOCHFYNE. 



built : the largest, being upwards of thirty-five feet keel, with 

 a large drift of nets and good sail and mast, will cost some- 

 thing like a sum of 200. 



The other mode of fishing for herrings, which has existed 

 for about a quarter of a century, is illegal, although it is as 

 nearly as possible the same as is legally used to capture the 

 pilchard on the coast of Cornwall. In the west of Scotland, 

 on Lochfyne in particular, where it is still to some extent 

 practised, it is called " trawling ;" but the instrument of cap- 



