THE LOBSTER FISHERY. 669 



to a pole, which hook is inserted in the belly, the softest part of the lobster. With this instru- 

 ment, it cannot be taken at any great depth, and only when the sea is calm so that the bottom 

 can be seen. Lobsters caught in this manner cannot be exported, as they could not stand the 

 journey. The implements which I am going to at once describe, and which have almost entirely 

 supplanted the simpler ones, are used by enticing the lobster with bait into a trap, out of which it 

 cannot escape. The simplest of these traps is seldom used with us, although, according to Oetker, 

 it seems to be in common use near Heligoland. It consists of a very thick iron ring, to which a 

 net is fastened, so as to form a deep bag below. The bai^is^ placed at the bottom of the bag, and 

 it is lowered and taken up by means of a long line, which, when the bag is at the bottom, reaches 

 up to the surface. To this line a piece of wood is fastened, which floats on the water and shows 

 the location of the trap. If this instrument has been lying at the bottom for half an hour in a 

 place where lobsters are known to abound, a sudden jerk is given to the line, so as to cause the 

 lobster to fall in the bag, and it is rapidly pulled up. (The most successful time of the day for 

 catching lobsters is generally iu the morning, and also between 11.30 a. m. and 3.30 p. m. With this 

 instrument, which the English call ' plumpers,' and the Germans ' Fallenkb'rber,' lobsters are 

 taken iu deep places.) With us the commonest implements for catching lobsters are baskets 

 ('Tc/wcr'). It seems certain that the Dutch first introduced them for catching lobsters; but they 

 may have been used long before that, e. g., for eels, as the name is Scandinavian, and is derived 

 from ' tun,' i. e., the long and tough roots of the juniper tree. After 1713, a beginning was made 

 in plaiting them of willow branches. Where these materials could not be readily obtained, they 

 were, as Pontoppidan related in 1753, made of hoops, which were kept apart by pieces of wood. 

 All round these nets are fastened, aud at each end there is a long, narrow, trough shaped 

 entrance, out of which the lobster canuot escape. On the one side there is a trap-door, which can 

 be closed with a peg, and to another pin sticking in the basket the bait is fastened, while under 

 the basket there are large stones to make it sink rapidly. To one of the uppermost pieces of wood 

 a pair of tongs is fastened, furnished at the end with a piece of wood to indicate the location of 

 the basket. Such are still in common use all along our coast. Still earlier, iu 1746, the famous 

 naturalist, Carl Liune", described similar baskets, which he saw in use on the coast of Bohuslen, in 

 his 'West-Gb'ta Resa,' p. 191. These were 2 yards long, 1 yard broad, and 1 yard high, resem- 

 bling a half cylinder, with entrances on both sides ; such are still used and could be seen at 

 the Bergen Exposition. At this same exposition a basket was exhibited, differing somewhat 

 from these in its shape ; it was plaited of branches, and was shaped like a hemisphere, with an 

 entrance at the top." 



THE FISHING BOATS AND SMACKS. 



About the same class of boats is employed in the lobster as in the other fisheries on the cor- 

 responding portions of the coast ; but the variety of boats used in the former fishery is, necessarily, 

 not so great as in the latter. The lobster boats may be conveniently divided into two classes ; first, 

 the smaller boats, with or without sails, used by the fishermen iu tending their pots, and, secondly, 

 the smacks acting as carriers to the different markets. The term smack is generally limited to 

 boats above 5 tons measurement, which, according to law, must register at the custom-house. 

 They are built either with or without wells, the former being used to carry lobsters alive to more 

 distant fresh markets, and the latter to near markets, such as the canneries on the coast of Maine. 

 The larger of the fishing boats are also usually called dry smacks, having no wells, and like- 

 wise frequently carry to near markets. The well smacks run mainly between the lobster grounds 

 and the large distributing centers, such as Portland, Boston, aud New York. Many of them, 



