TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 15 
common house-laths. They are usually made semi-cylindrical 
in shape, being flat below, rounded at the sides and above, and 
with a net-work or wooden funnel-entrance at each end, or at 
one end only. The ordinary size is four feet long, and about 
18 inches broad and high, with two funnels; smaller sizes with 
one funnel, and larger sizes with four funnels are occasionally 
used, as are also rectangular-shaped pots. The old style of 
lobster pot, employed when lobsters were more abundant and 
the fishery less important, consisted of a wooden or iron hoop, 
of variable size, up to 4 feet or more in diameter, carrying a net 
which sagged but little, and furnished above with a cross-hoop 
arrangement, or with twine leaders, to which the line for lower- 
ing it, as well as the bait, was fastened. This style of pot has 
now almost entirely disappeared from the coast, as it required 
constant attention, and only a few could be tended by each fish- 
erman. The lath or cylinder pots are baited in the center with 
cheap or refuse fish, which are fastened on an upright spear- 
like holder. They are weighted with stones, and lowered and 
raised by means of a rope attached to the end of the pot. The 
number of pots used by each fisherman varies in different 
localities, ranging all the way from 8 or Io to 100. Theaverage 
number may be said to be about 50 or 60. . The pots are set 
either singly or attached together in trawls, the character of the 
bottom, abundance of lobsters, and custom regulating this 
matter. When set trawl-fashion, the pots can be handled much 
more easilygthan otherwise, and this method is generally pre- 
ferred on the coast of Maine, wherever lobsters are abundant 
and the bottom not too rough. The pots are fastened together 
in strings of ro ora dozen to 50 or 60, at distances apart of 15 
to 20 fathoms, and have a long buoy line at each end. The fish- 
erman pays out his lobster trawl in a straight line, beginning at 
one end, and marks the ends with kegs or small wooden buoys. 
After remaining down a sufficient length of time, generally 
twenty-four hours, he proceeds to examine his pots, beginning 
at one end of the trawl and underrunning it to the other. The 
general arrangement of the trawl! is not, therefore, disturbed; 
but the pots, after they have been examined, fall back again into 
nearly the same places which they previously occupied. In 
