230 THE SAND-EEL SEINE. 



to be placed (marked A in the cut), which is to be gathered 

 sufficiently to bag equally with the calico, and the remainder 

 or arms of the net may consist of three-inch mesh (marked B), 

 which may gradually diminish in depth from its commence- 

 ment at the one-inch mesh, where it is eighteen feet in depth, 

 until it reaches the pole-staff, where eight feet will be suffi- 

 cient ; but if the shore be very flat and shallow, the net need 

 not exceed five feet at the end. A net of this description 

 will cost about i2/., and in the island of Guernsey is owned 

 by several fishermen ; or if by one only, other fishermen 

 having the benefit of the net pay tenpence a week to the 

 owner, each man attending to work the net when a supply of 

 Sand-Eels is requisite, which is commonly every fourth or fifth 

 day. 



The importance of the Sand-Eel as a living bait cannot be 

 too widely known, and I trust that ere long it will be as com- 

 monly used as on the coasts of the Channel Islands. The 

 method has been introduced into England with complete 

 success, and has reached the Scilly Islands. 



Two boats are required in obtaining the Sand-Eels : one 

 casts its anchor on the top of a rock out of the water and veers 

 out a few fathoms of rope, whilst the other, having one end of 

 the seine attached to the first boat by a rope, proceeds to shoot 

 the net in a semicircle in the eddy of the rock, and casting 

 anchor hauls in about half the rope, when the men get up their 

 anchor, and going on board the first boat haul the seine along- 

 side, keeping the boat broadside on to the net, whilst one of 

 them continually thrusts down an oar to frighten the fish back 

 towards the bunt, that they may not escape under the boat's 

 bottom, the only means now left open to them. 



The fish being hauled alongside in the calico bunt are now 

 dipped up in buckets or hand-nets, and poured into the * courges ' 

 or baskets, to be kept until wanted (for which see figs. 19 and 

 20, pp. 66, 67). 



The method used in England of hauling the seine on the 

 beach cannot but -be prejudicial to the Sand-Eels, as they are 

 washed to and fro in the surf, and are more or less injured 

 thereby, so that they are found not to live on the average more 



