46 THE COMMERCIAL SEA FISHES OF 



buoys which support it at any desired depth, or the cork 

 line may have sufficient floats on it to keep the upper edge 

 of the net at the surface of the water. The fleet of nets is 

 connected to the fishing vessel by a warp of strong rope, to 

 which each piece of net composing the fleet is fastened, and 

 thus by seizings of sufficient length to allow the warp to 

 sink nearly, if not quite, as low as the foot of the net. The 

 warp not only assists when hauling in the net by lessening 

 the strain, but should any accident have occurred it often 

 serves to secure the various pieces of the net. The fishing 

 boat to which the warp is attached has to maintain suffi- 

 cient strain on the nets to keep them taut or extended, 

 for which reason they are shot in the direction the wind is 

 blowing. Every vessel while its fleet of drift-nets is in the 

 sea ought by law to have two lights hoisted one above 

 another at not less than three feet asunder. 



The seine-nets employed in our fisheries are of three 

 principal descriptions, the common or stop-seine, also termed 

 a trawl in Scotland, the tuck-seine and the ground-seine. 

 All are used for the purpose of encircling or surrounding 

 fishes, and the middle or deepest portion is termed the 

 bunt, and the lateral portion the sides or wings. Its 

 upper edge or back is furnished with corks or floats, while 

 its foot or lower edge is leaded. If worked entirely from 

 boats it is shot in a complete circle ; if from the shore in a 

 semicircle. More than one net may be employed, as seen 

 in the fishery for pilchards off St. Ives in Cornwall, when to 

 the end of the large seine-net a smaller or stop-net may be 

 attached. The boats commence shooting their nets from 

 the point of junction, the larger seine being taken some- 

 what parallel to the shore, and the stop-net being carried 

 towards the shore. The seine having been taken round the 

 shoal, completes the circle by joining the stop-seine. By 



