and the Solway, and various means were attempted to 

 render it more productive. What was called a toot-net 

 was. tried ; and at some stations another engine called a 

 stage-net, was introduced. The toot-net, in some respects, 

 resembled the common seine, or coble-net; but it was 

 much larger and stronger, and extending to an indefinite 

 length from the beach into the water, was secured at its 

 extremity by an anchor. The construction of the stage- 

 net was more complicated. The fish were here, by means 

 of a long line of network, fastened like the toot-net by 

 an anchor, conducted into gins or traps, or what were 

 termed pock-nets, placed below a wooden platform on 

 which the fisher stood to watch ; and when they were 

 inclosed in these gins or traps, he raised them to his stage 

 or platform, and so secured them. 



None of these modes of fishing, however, effected any 

 material improvement upon the produce of the fisheries, 

 which remained almost unaltered, until a more efficient 

 species of apparatus, which was introduced about the 

 close of last century, by some enterprising fishers in An- 

 nandalc, opened up new views, and caused a total revolu- 

 tion in the Salmon fishery of Scotland. 



On the extensive fiats or sand-banks in the Solway 

 Frith, large excavations are made by the eddies of the 

 current, which, at ebb-tide, form on the banks large 

 pools, or lakes, as they are termed by the fishers. At 

 these lakes, the fishers erected what was at first called 

 a tide or Jloating-net, in consequence of the net being so 

 constructed, that it was the operation of the tide itself 

 which secured the fish. It consisted of strong and coarse 

 net-work, the meshes of which were ten or twelve in- 

 ches in circuit, placed along the margin of the lake 

 and surrounding it on all sides. This net-work was fast- 

 ened to stakes driven into the banks, at considerable dis- 



