THE COD AND COD-FISHEET 305 



foot down. It needs a great deal of rope to work it, and, 

 as a rule, a large crew of men. On an average, such a net 

 contains five hundred pounds of twine, and costs, ready to 

 go into the water, about $500. The crew of the long, 

 specially constructed boat numbers seven men, one of whom 

 is the " seine master"; he directs the oarsmen, himself 

 standing up forward on the lookout for shoals of fish. 

 This net can be used only in more or less shallow water, 

 where tides are slack and where the bottom is smooth and 

 perfectly sandy. The purse-seine, a variety which can be 

 pulled together into a bag below, and so fished far from 

 land in deep water, is not used on our coast. To enable 

 the master to see fish in ten fathoms of water, he uses a 

 " fish glass, " a metal funnel with a plain glass bottom, which 

 he pushes down below the ruffled surface of the sea. An 

 advantage of the purse-seine net is that the fisherman 

 pursues the fish with it, instead of waiting for them to come 

 to him. It satisfies also the mind restless to be hunting 

 and working, rather than, like the lazy spider, merely 

 sitting down and taking the chance of the prey coming 

 voluntarily along. 



The latest contrivance, however, and the one now gener- 

 ally used, is called a cod trap. It is practically nothing 

 but a large room with walls and floor of twine, and the sur- 

 face of the sea for a roof. It has a door on the landward, 

 into the middle of which passes an upright net partition, 

 called a leader. The leader is made to the land or rocks 

 along which the fish are wont to swim and feed in their 

 great shoals. When the room or trap is seen by the crew 

 in the boat overhead to contain fish, the doors are pulled 

 up, and then the floor is passed over the boat till all the fish 



