UNITED STATES 



meshes ; and consequently they prefer those fish that have 

 been caught in weirs or purse-seines. Weirs are very 

 successful in late autumn, when the fish come close in- 

 shore to spawn. 



The more distant herring-fishery, which extends as far 

 as the British waters round New Brunswick, is carried 

 on in smacks, and principally by means of purse-seines. 

 The season is a long one, lasting at least three months. 

 Often the catching is done in exactly the same way as 

 mackerel-seining, the full net being towed aft ; but, where 

 small purses are used, the catch is sometimes hauled up 

 on deck. Collecting-boats are often dispensed with, for 

 many smacks carry a plentiful supply of ice; and the 

 herring, packed carefully in this, will keep good and 

 fresh for months at a time; other boats give up their 

 catches daily to a steamer. 



Before the herring -fishery has ended for the year, 

 another industry begins farther south : mullet ing. The 

 great mullet-ground is the Cedar Keys, off the Florida 

 coast, and the season lasts from the beginning of 

 December to the end of the first week in February. 

 Gill-nets and even trawls are used for these; but again 

 neither is so popular as the purse-seine. The fish taken 

 average two and a half pounds, and they are caught in 

 astonishing profusion. A seine worked by eight men has 

 been known to catch ten thousand of them at one shoot- 

 ing. Reckoning at the rate of thirty fish to a cubit foot, 

 this represents a solid mass measuring about seven feet 

 each way, and weighing over eleven tons. 



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