272 ON COLLECTING SHELLS. 



inside. Tlie end is untied when the net is hauled on boarcf for 

 the purpose of taking the fish out. These nets can only be 

 worked whei'e the bottom of the sea is free from rocks. They 

 are used by boats of 35 to 60 tons, manned b}^ crews of from 

 four to six men and two to three or four boys. In the vicinity 

 of Scarborough, England, they fish with these nets between the 

 shore-reefs and the off rock, which is 4 to 10 miles from land; 

 the bottom is sand or clay, with 4 to 15 fathoms water on the land 

 side, and 1*7 to 25 fathoms on the off side. Inimense qviantities 

 of Crustacea and shell-fish are taken with the trawl, as well as 

 ground-fish. 



Kettle-nets. On the flat, sandy coast of Kent and Sussex, 

 England, mackerel-fishery is pursu.ed by setting up stakes 10 or 

 15 feet high, at distances of 10 feet apart, in lines running out- 

 wards from the shore at high-water, to low-water neap tides, 

 where they are turned in the direction of the tide. To these 

 stakes nets are attached, and leaded, which remain as long as 

 the fish are on the coast. Cuttle-fish are frequently taken in 

 these nets. 



Deep-sea Fishery. In North Britain an extensive ground- 

 fishery is conducted by means of long lines — often a mile in 

 length — with hooks and baits every few yards. These lines are 

 laid out at night near the coast, and taken up the next morning. 

 When used out at sea, the boats lay by for a few hours, and then 

 take up the lines. The carnivorous whelks adhere to the baits 

 (which have not been seized by fishes), and sometimes a bushel of 

 them are taken in this way from a single line. Rhynchonella 

 psittacea^ Panopaea Norvegica, Velutinse and some of the scarce 

 Fusi, have been obtained from these lines, the bivalves having 

 been entangled accidentally by the hooks. 



For trapping whelks on rocky ground a net may be made such 

 as is used for crabs and lobsters, by attaching a loose bag to an 

 iron ring of a yard across. This is fastened to a rope by three 

 equal strings, baited with dead fish, and let down from a vessel 

 at anchor, or, still better, from a buoy. It is put down OA^er 

 night, and hauled up gentl.y in the morning. 



Carnivorous mollusks are often found in lobster-pots, which 

 they enter to feed upon the bait. 



Dredging, " Up to the middle of last century the little that 

 was known of the inhabitants of the bottom of the sea beyond 

 low-water mark, seems to have been gathered almost entirely 

 from the few objects found thrown upon the beach from time to 

 time after storms, and from chance captures on lead-lines, and 

 by fishermen on their long-lines and in trawls and oyster and 

 clam dredges. 



" The naturalist's dredge does not appear to have been sj^s- 

 tematicallv used for investigating the fauna of the bottom of 



