234 NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Modes of fishing for niackrel. 



baited with small herrings and pieces of other 

 kinds of fish or flesh. In some places it is taken 

 by lines from boats, as during a fresh gale of 

 wind it readily seizes a bait. It is necessary that 

 the boat should be in motion in order to drag 

 the bait along (a bit of red cloth, or a piece of 

 the tail of a mackrel,) near the surface of the 

 water. The great fishery for mackrel is on some 

 parts of the west coast of England. This is of 

 such an extent, as to employ in the whole a 

 capital of near 20O,OOOl. The fishermen go out 

 to the distance of several leagues from the shore, 

 and stretch their nets, which are sometimes seve- 

 ral miles in extent, across the tide, during the 

 night* The meshes of these nets are just large 

 enough to admit the heads of tolerably large fish, 

 and catch them by the gills. A single boat has 

 been known to bring in after one night's fishing, 

 a cargo that has sold for near seventy pounds. 



Besides these, there is another mode of fishing 

 for mackrel in the west of England, with a ground 

 seine. A roll of rope of about two hundred fa- 

 thoms in length, with the net fastened to the end, 

 is tied at the other to a post or rock on the shore. 

 The boat is then rowed to the extremity of thi& 

 coil, when a pole fixed there, leaded heavily at 

 the bottom, is thrown overboard. The rowers 

 from hence make as nearly as possible a semi- 

 circle, two men now continually and regularly 

 putting the net into the water. When they 

 come to ihe other end of the net, where there is 



