588 THE OCEAN WORLD, 
modes of fishing are in action from the 1st of February to the 
14th of September, a period, however, now curtailed by twenty- 
eight days—netting being illegal from Saturday to Monday in each 
week. It remains to be seen whether the gourmet will enjoy his 
salmon better after its Sabbath rest; perhaps its ragout will then 
haunt him as it did Talleyrand’s abbé, who, instead of the mea culpa 
of the Confiteor, iterated, “Ah! le bon saumon! ah! le bon 
saumon !” 
A bag-net is composed of three chambers : the first, which is the 
widest, is at the entrance: the next is the doubling, and is one inch 
to the mesh narrower than the outer. The last is the fish court, 
where the fish, by a simple and ingenious contrivance, are prevented 
from finding the door by which they entered. It is partly floated 
by corks and partly by an empty cask on the head or principal riding 
rope. It is set in the sea by ropes attached to anchors, one anchor 
rope to the head of the net and one on each wing at the entrance of 
the bag. The bag-leader is a separate net held by a rope and anchor on 
the land side, and is fastened to the bag-net The principle of fishing 
is this: the tide makes a curve on the leader of the bag, in this curve 
the fish swim into the net. Bags are adapted for any kind of coast, 
and six or seven are run out to sea end on. Fly nets are the same 
as bags in principle, but slightly altered so as to adapt them for 
being fixed to stakes driven into the sand instead of being moored 
by rope and anchor; they are always used where the tide ebbs. 
Stake nets are expensive, and seldom used nowadays. When in 
fishing trim they are, however, more deadly than fly nets: their 
chambers are three times as large, but the principle of fishing in bag 
and stake nets is identical, leaders being used in all. It is note- 
worthy that trout are never caught in these leaders. 
The Clupeade.—Of this family the herring is the useful and well- 
known type, to which also the pilchard, the shad, and the anchovy 
belong. The species of Clupea have the body longish and com- 
pressed, especially at the belly, where it comes to an edge; they are 
clothed with large scales, forming towards the belly a saw-like edge, 
which is very thin and easily removed. They have one dorsal fin 
without spinous rays, and one ventral, both placed near the middle 
of the body. 
The Herring, Clupea harengus (Fig 382), is too well known to 
require description ; its appearance is beautiful; but we shall only . 
remark here that its back, which in the fish after death is of an indigo 
bluish colour, is greenish during life; the other parts vary consider- 
ably in their colours and markings, sometimes representing written 
