214 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



ingly fixed upon by the shoal for public games ; and the 

 hempen walls axe looked upon as a common lounge, bene- 

 volently stretched out by- the fishermen for their benefit. 

 Up to the fatal engine swims the whole legion, eyes it 

 first, then noses it in motionless wonder and delight, and 

 finally, waxing bold from impunity, begins, — like the 

 Trojan youth, assembled round the mare and mother of 

 their woes, — to play with the threads of destiuy, ' fanes 

 finnis contingere gaudent,^ moving the meshes with spor- 

 tive tails, rubbing their sides against the holdfasts, play- 

 ing at prison-bars, and coursing rapidly through every 

 open square that will admit a free passage to their bodies ; 

 thus in they go and out they glide, up and down, back- 

 wards and forwards, round and round ; till finding a hole 

 too small for egress, each struggling detenu becomes im- 

 movably fixed, and is presently dragged on shore with 

 many a partner in misfortune, 



Wliere tired he sleeps, and life's gay game gives o'er. 



The occasional supplies of mackerel thus netted are 

 incalculably great, exceeding in quantity the proceeds of 

 every other fishery along our coasts, except it be of cer- 

 tain members of the Clupean family. In almost every 

 mesh of the long reticulated work a fish is found im- 

 pacted, besides the numbers enclosed vrithin; but sea- 

 crops, like land-crops, are subject to great fluctuations, 

 and Cicero was quite right when he wrote to his friend, 

 ' ad lacertos capiendos tempestates non sunt omnes ido- 

 nese,' as indeed the following abstract from Mr. YarreU's 

 instructive book on ' British Yish' strikingly illustrates: — 



The price of mackerel, in May, 1807, in the Billingsgate mar- 

 ket, was as follows : — Forty guineas for every hundred of the 

 first cargo, which made the fish come to seven shillings apiece ! 

 The next supphes were also exorbitant, though much less so than 

 the first, fetching thirteen pounds per hundred, or two shillings 

 apiece. The very next year the former deficiencies were more 

 than made up, for it appears that during the season 1808, mack- 



