3 i8 APPARATUS FOR FISHING. 



placed. On some parts of the coast, where a considerable 

 extent of sand is laid bare at low-water, the weir consists 

 of a wattled fence so placed as to form a number of zig- 

 zags along the line of beach, the lower angles of the weir 

 being just at low-water mark. In one we had an oppor- 

 tunity of inspecting, each arm of a zigzag was about two- 

 hundred yards long, and at the low-water angle a conical 

 wicker-basket with a mouse-trap entrance was firmly fixed 

 at the place where the two arms or fences almost met. 

 The manner in which such a weir works is very simple. 

 At high-water the whole weir is covered by the water, and 

 fish may in some cases enter it above the fence, but as there 

 is nothing to prevent fish from passing round the two ends 

 of the long zigzag weir, no doubt many of those which are 

 caught enter in that direction, and swimming along between 

 the weir and the shore, find their way into the V shaped 

 enclosures, from which, as the tide ebbs and the top of the 

 fence appears above water, they cannot make their escape. 

 Ultimately many of the fish make their way into the 

 wicker-baskets we have mentioned. The fishing-weir used 

 in a salmon-river is of a different kind, although the 

 principle is much the same. Two substantial arms of stone 

 are built in a sloping direction down-stream, one from each 

 bank, but one of the arms is usually much longer than the 

 other, so as to direct the fish towards one side of the river. 

 Between the ends of these arms a series of "cruives" or 

 " cribs " is constructed by means of which all the fish which 

 come down the river may have a good chance of being 

 caught unless they pass through an opening in the centre 

 which is always clear and is called the Queen's Gap. A 

 line of cruives has some resemblance to a battlemented 

 wall, being composed of a long solid mass of masonry a 

 few feet in breadth, having gaps at regular distances along 



