GREAT BRITAIN. 



SEA FISHING. 



UNDEB this head is included everything immediately relating to and connected with the actual 

 working of all kinds of fishing. The class has been naturally and conveniently divided into 

 two sections sea fishing and freshwater fishing ; and it ia to the more important section of 

 sea fishing that attention will first be directed. 



The wide importance of the sea fisheries will be perhaps better understood when the 

 variety of objects now brought together before the public have been examined, and it is 

 observed how many trades must be kept at work, and how much knowledge in various forms 

 is required to provide the fisherman with the apparently simple means of carrying on his 

 daily occupation of catching fish. The demand for sea fish is constantly increasing. This 

 naturally leads to greater enterprise among the fishermen; and capital, in the majority of 

 cases the accumulated savings from years of hard work at the fisheries, is invested in additional 

 boats and gear for the further development of an industry which, laborious as it is, yet rarely 

 fails to bring a more or less profitable return to all who are concerned in it. The special 

 increase of fishing during recent years has been, however, in the deep sea, and nothing has 

 been more remarkable in this respect than the rapid growth of beam-trawling, especially in 

 the North Sea, where a great extent of suitable ground is always available. It is from this 

 vast field and by the method of fishing known as "beam-trawling" that the London and 

 country markets are mainly supplied with turbot, brill, and soles among "prime" fish, and 

 thousands of tons of plaice, haddock, and other common fish are obtained and distributed 

 at low prices among the poorer classes throughout the country. The peculiar construction of 

 the beam-trawl will well repay examination, and some idea will be obtained of the manner in 

 which such large numbers of fish are taken whilst the net is being silently towed over the 

 ground, entirely out of sight of the fishermen. 



Second only in importance to the trawl is the drift-net, the method by which mackerel, 

 herrings, and pilchards are principally captured. In this case we have nets which are in general 

 use all round our coasts, and employed at long as well as at moderate distances from the 

 land. As their name implies, " drift-nets " require plenty of room, for they are carried 

 wherever the tide may drift them during the few hours they are left in the water ; and their 

 simple character will be readily understood from the numerous specimens exhibited, differing 

 but little in general appearance except in the size of the mesh, which is adapted to the kind 

 of fish intended to be taken. Few people who are not fishermen have any idea of the hundreds 

 or even thousands of miles of net which almost nightly in the regular fishing seasons float like 

 long walls or barriers in the sea to intercept and mesh the shoals of fish as they gradually . 

 draw in towards the coast. The drift fisheries are altogether a very important industry, both 

 to ourselves and those countries bordering on the North Sea and the Channel, and in 

 Scotland the drift herring fishery is looked forward to as the most valuable harvest. 

 Besides the nets already mentioned, many other varieties will be found abundantly represen- 

 ted ; among them the gigantic funnel-shaped stow-net, by which thousands of tons of sprats 

 are caught every winter at the mouth of the Thames and other places on the south coast of 

 England and the sean, seine, or sweep-not (the ancient Sagena] the oldest form of net of which 



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