48 EFFECT OF LINES ON STAR-FISHES AND WORMS. 



fishermen in this respect. The daily captures of the common 

 cross- fishes by the liners amount to a great annual total, yet 

 such is unavoidable, and, indeed, the species is a pest to both 

 the liner and the shell-fish farmer. As already said, it is the 

 liner who procures many of the smaller holothurians, and who 

 first made us acquainted with the rarer heart-urchins and sea- 

 urchins {e.g., the ' piper '). 



In the group of the worms, one of the most gigantic 

 Nemerteans (3 feet long and nearly an inch broad) has hitherto 

 only come from the liner, and even the black line-worm is 

 occasionally caught on the hooks. In the debris from deep-sea 

 fishing-boats many of the rarer bristled annelids have been 

 procured, and serpulids, the coral-like masses of Filigrana, and 

 many others, come from the same method of fishing. It is an 

 interesting fact, and a criticism on man's influence on the 

 inhabitants of the ocean, that neither liner nor trawler has ever 

 captured the characteristic spoonworm (Echiurus pallasii) of 

 St Andrews, and that storms alone toss them in multitudes on 

 the beach. Food-fishes, however, find them out, and feed on 

 them in their haunts. 



If we regard crab- and lobster-fishing as a branch of the 

 trade of the liner — and it apparently has little connection in 

 any respect with the trawler — the effect of other instruments 

 than the trawl in reducing the number of these animals is 

 conspicuous. The larger forms by-and-by become rare, and 

 all become fewer. There is no proof that the trawl ever 

 seriously affects either species, but its use, close to rocky 

 borders in bays, may occasionally in former days have inter- 

 fered with the traps. The hooks of the liner now and then 

 capture both species, and furnish many hermit-crabs in shells, 

 Norway lobsters, some of the rarer long-tailed forms {e.g., 

 Munida), and many of the short-tailed crabs {e.g., Atelecyclus 

 and Eurynome). The hooks, likewise, bring up branches of 

 submerged trees, coated with large sea-acorns, and affording 

 shelter around the feathery tufts of zoophytes to many small 

 sessile-eyed crabs. 



Fine masses of sea-mats and bunches of sea-grapes (As- 

 cidians) are very common on board the liners, the hooks 



