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the owners. The plan of operation is this ; A school 

 of fish, or a single individual running into a harbor 

 — for it is such localities that are usually selected 

 — strikes agaiilst the wing, and is arrested in his 

 course. Sometimes he turns back and goes to sea 

 again. Timid fishes are often driven off in this 

 nianner, and never return, doing no good to the pound 

 ■fishermen, nor to those who might have captured 

 them in more legitimate ways. But if they are bold and 

 determined they will push on, following the obstruction 

 to its outer end, with the intention of passing around it. 

 Theyj'are frequently of the class of migratory fishes 

 which must change their element, and will strive by 

 every means to overcome obstacles, or they rnay be shore 

 varieties which are seeking some bay or shallow creek in 

 which to spawn, and which it is very desirable should 

 not be frustrated in their purpose. They swim cautious- 

 ly, but perseveringly, along the wall of netting, but 

 when they come to the end, instead of passing around it 

 they are conducted into the trap, from which there is no 

 escape, and where they await the arrival of the fisher- 

 man, who usually raises and empties his pound once or 

 twice a day. 



This simple statement of the plan of operation shows 

 its great destructiveness. It is fishing all the while ; day 

 and night its victims are beijig led into the fatal traps. 

 Nothing that comes along can escape, unless it be the 

 timorous varieties, whose alarm carries them at once back 

 to their haunts of safety and out of the reach of man. It 

 is an inexpensive engine of piscatorial warfare as fatal to 

 the masses of fish life as to the single individual voyaging 

 alone. No one would object if there were fish enough 

 for it and for the neighboring residents beside. Were 

 that the case,it would be a convenient and effectual mfithod 



