FISH-TRAPS. 315 



which so often attends the employment of an old sixpence 

 or a bit of the white stem of an ordinary pipe as a bait on 

 a mackerel hook. Sand worms of more than one kind are 

 in favour, especially for pollack, and for various kinds of 

 fish no bait is more attractive than the living sand-eel. 

 This little silvery fish is the favourite bait, living or dead, 

 with the fishermen at Guernsey, and is coming into use on 

 parts of our own coast. Among other attractions offered 

 to the fish which frequent our coasts are the tail of the 

 hermit or soldier-crab, and squid or cuttle-fish, the latter 

 used in many parts of the world, and valuable on account 

 of its toughness. In recent years many artificial baits for 

 sea-fishing have been invented, all of them intended more 

 or less as imitations of such natural baits as have proved to 

 be generally attractive. The same principle applies to the 

 multitude of artificial flies and other imitations used in 

 freshwater-fishing, but we believe the original of the gaudy 

 salmon-fly has still to be discovered. The use of artificial 

 baits is, however, by no means confined to this country, and 

 we have often successfully fished on the coasts of Ceylon, 

 with an extraordinary combination of cocoa-nut and fibrous 

 bark tied on the roughest description of hook ; and this 

 bait, in supposed imitation of a flying-fish, is the one in 

 general use there for catching the seir-fish a very large 

 species of the mackerel tribe, and one of the best fishes for 

 the table which are met with in the Indian seas. 



FISH-TRAPS. 



Some account having been given of the largest and most 

 important methods of fishing, we propose now to say a 

 few words about those kinds which hold a less conspicuous 

 position, although in the aggregate contributing a fair 

 proportion to the market supply of food, and giving 



