CRAB AND LOBSTER POTS, 319 



the line. These openings form effective traps. The lower 

 end of each gap has an upright grating to allow the water 

 to pass through, but to stop any fish that may enter, and 

 the upper end or entrance has two swing transverse gratings 

 or " gills " which can be placed at any angle with each 

 other, so as to regulate the width of the entrance, and which 

 interlock when closed. The shutting of these gratings of 

 course closes the cruive, and the fish which may be inside 

 are then taken out with a landing net. The ingenuity of 

 man has devised a great variety of contrivances for catching 

 salmon, and the names by which many of them are known 

 vary according to the locality in which they are used, but 

 they all come within State regulation as to seasons or in some 

 cases even the numbers that may be worked Lastly, we 

 may shortly notice those traps which are made of basket- 

 work. It is only on the Severn that the contrivances 

 called " putts " and " putchers " are used, and they are 

 long conical baskets with a mouse-trap entrance a short 

 distance inside. Putchers are only small putts. The latter 

 are fastened down in rows with their mouths facing the 

 stream ; and putchers are commonly fixed in a wattled 

 fence, technically called a " hedge," each alternate putcher 

 having its mouth in an opposite direction. Eel bucks and 

 lampern wheels are constructed on the same principle, and 

 work in precisely the same manner. 



CRAB AND LOBSTER POTS. 



There is one great principle adopted in almost all, 

 methods that are in use for catching crabs and lobsters 

 and that is the one familiar to everybody in the common 

 mouse-trap. The entrance to the trap, for such it must 

 properly be called, is funnel-shaped, that is, the external 

 opening is a comparatively wide one, and the passage into 



