THE SEA FISHERIES OF IRELAND. 383 



also established building- yards to meet the demand awakened by the 

 opening up of new centres of fishing. 



Leaving the Connemara coast for Donegal, we meet with a good class of 

 four-oared yawl, pointefl at both ends, of great beam, and easy to manage 

 under two spritsails and a jib. They are generally known by the herring 

 fishers and line men all along the north coast as " Greencastle yawls " ; 

 but at Greencastle and its neighbourhood, the point from which the type • 

 has radiated, they are called " Drontheim Boats," indicating clearly enough 

 that they have been introduced from Norway. 



In West Cork and Kerry a long narrow six-oared boat has become preva- 

 lent, great speed being required for w^orking the large mackerel seines. 



At the mouth of the Shannon the salmon fishers of the Cashen river 

 have adopted a highly specialised class of surf boat. The heavy Atlantic 

 swell breaking on the bar frequently renders ingress or egress for any 

 ordinary boat impossible, but these boats with flat floor amidships, and 

 sheered up to five feet off the ground at either end, can make the passage 

 when nothing else could. 



On the flat shores of Wexford flat double-keeled boats are used ; but in 

 the rest of Ireland the boats employed are for the most part the antiquated 

 hooker, but more generally the modern trawler or herring boat, or ketch- 

 rigged mackerel boat similar to those in use in other parts of the United 

 Kingdom. 



With so many types of boat in use it is possible that some one may ask 

 — why cannot some type be found to be less special, and consequently more 

 generally useful ? Some dependence of the type on physical features has 

 already been pointed out ; but there is one more point. Taking boats of 

 large size alone, some are wanted for drift-net fishing, others for line-fishing, 

 and others for trawling, according as the facilities for following any of these 

 fishings predominate. And it often becomes a most delicate calculation to 

 find out what qualities should, with a view to profit, be aimed at. The 

 diversity of requirements between an ideal mackerel boat and a trawler 

 may thus be stated in illustration : a mackerel boat, besides needing good 

 sea-going qualities, which she must have in common with a trawler, must be 

 constructed to carry a bulky load of nets and of fish, and to put the 

 minimum strain on her gear when in the water. A trawler, on the contrary, 

 must be constructed to put the maximum strain on her gear, and carrying 

 capacity for her is of little importance. Generally speaking the qualities 

 desired are as numerous as the types of craft in use. 



Steam has for many years been used in the ordinary mackerel boats to 

 give power to the capstan which hauls in the long trains of nets. During 

 the last twenty years the steam trawler has become more and more the 

 craft on which the permanent markets depend ; and quite recently the 

 steam drift-net boats are coming to the front and may now be found in the 

 springtime landing their catches of mackerel in our south-western ports. 



IV.— DEPARTMENTAL MARINE LABORATORY. 



Equipment for Fisheries Investigations. 



Although Ireland can show a long and honourable record of work in the 

 field of m.arine biology, it is only within comparatively recent years that the 



