134 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA, 



tion) must have greatly resembled the nets used in 

 tunny fishing, — a large net with " walls " and 

 purseSj a regular submarine maze, from which the 

 fish, when once fairly enclosed, could seldom escape. 

 Whether the fishermen of our day ever read Appian, 

 cither in the original or through a translation, I 

 cannot affirm positively, though I much doubt it; this 

 I do know, however, that the first who employed 

 the Proven9al drag, or American pig-catcher, re- 

 nouncing the use of the harpoon, did so after 

 this fashion. The tunny never travels alone. He 

 never turns back, but always goes straight forward. 

 In fact, he is a "regular go-ahead Yankee.^' If he 

 meets with any obstacle in his Avay, instead of trying 

 to break through or get over it, he merely swims 

 round it, when a single blow of his tail would 

 perhaps free him. This fact once understood, the 

 inventive fisherman eould easily take advantage of 

 the habit of the tunny in order to catch him. He 

 had only to make an immense net to present a kind 

 of wall, and to secure it so with anchors and ropes 

 that it could be stretched out far into the sea. This 

 kmd of arrangement has not been materially altered 

 since the day when it was first invented. The tunnies 

 find their way into the labyrinth, and become en- 

 tangled in the first enmeshed enclosure, from which 

 there is no escape but into the second, and that again 

 leads to a third, and so on, to the fourth and last, 

 which is nothing but an enormous bag, secured to 



