MODERN TUNNY-FISHING. 



107 



shallow water, they spread out an immense net, closed 

 at one end ; in this they imprison the frightened, strug- 

 gling, drifting tunnies, and pour them out in shining 

 3 lost s upon the beach, where they are straightway killed. 



TUNNY-FISHING A LA TONNALRE. 



In this way no fewer than two thousand to three thou- 

 sand quintals are caught at a single haul. The tonnaire, 

 as it is called, is in vogue upon the coasts of Provence, 

 and, to some extent, in Calabria and Sicily. 



The more complicated process of the madrague is, 

 however, more generally practised ; and, as Duhainel says, 

 no other combination of meshes can convey such an idea of 

 human ingenuity and skill in the "retiary art" as this. So 

 enormous is the quantity of fish it sometimes secures, that 

 in the archives of the active little fishing-town of Couil- 

 loure is preserved the registration of a single- night's spoil 

 namely, one hundred and sixty thousand tunny, each of 

 an average weight of 25 Ibs., but many reaching 120 Ibs. 

 The madrague is, in fact, a vast floating decoy, permanent, 



