To the Disciples of Isaac Walton 



WE must not speak carelessly of "fishermen" in the 

 mass, as though they were homogenous type like the 

 bank clerk; there are very few occasions when they 

 can properly be collected under the general heading. Let us 

 drop our net at random into a big school of fishermen and see 

 what we get. 



The net is up and the writhing mass spread out on the 

 dock for inspection. The first to disentangle himself from 

 the struggling crown is a sturdy, weatherbeaten figure, com- 

 pletely enveloped in oilskins, with long whiskers feeling out 

 for the salt breezes like antennae. His every aspect breathes 

 of the Newfoundland Banks. He's a fisherman; his business 

 ride the seas in all weathers and catch the cod, yank them 

 >ut of the water with all possible speed and carry them off to 



friendly port at the greatest possible profit. 



Close behind him follows another type, very different but 

 icne the less a fisherman. He is a sleek, brown, naked Arab 

 nose pinched to an unseemly point by the constant use 

 >f a clothespin, whose one ambition is to develop a large 



lough lung capacity to enable him to stay under the water 



df an hour to gather oysters. Do you suppose he enjoys that 

 continuous diving? Possibly, but it is his business and his 



>al pleasure comes in mauling over the sickening mass of 



)tting molluscs on the beach in search of the modest pearls, 

 "hey are his living. 



One large group which stands out peramnently among 

 the rest are the seine fishers, the men who sift the herring, 

 sardines, blue fish, salmon, mullet, mackeral and numberless 

 )thers from the waters of the world. The hauling of the 



sine is the business of his day, the fish his wages. He must 

 jatch fish or starve. 



And so we might follow the seas and the rivers finding 

 type after type of every nationality of "men who go down to 

 the sea in ships" and take out the fish for a living. As widely 



