120 SALMON AND TROUT. 
plenty of salmon are—or used to be—killed in them z7thout the 
rod, I think I can avouch! For trout fishing they seem well 
suited to their haditués, but certainly coracle-fishing is an art 
which does not come by nature. The method of propulsion 
is by paddling, the paddle sometimes used in front ! and pulled 
towards the rower, the blade being turned side- or edge-ways 
when recovered. ‘This is slightly complicated in practice, and 
rather difficult to describe theoretically. ‘If worked at the 
side, and the paddle used perpendicularly, the coracle only 
spins round without progressing’ [W. 4. #.]—a result which 
tends to instruction rather than edification. 
The coracle is carried on the back by a band passing 
through the seat and over the bearer’s chest, the paddle resting 
horizontally against his back, which prevents the bottom of the 
coracle incommoding the action of the legs in walking. Coracle 
races are an ‘institution,’ and afford much fun. The com- 
petitors start two or three hundred yards on land, with the 
coracles on their backs ; launch them, get on board, and then 
‘go as they can’—a ‘foul’ usually terminating in the capsize 
of one or both competitors, and no assistance is expected by 
a shipwrecked adversary. The length of the course is usually 
about a quarter of.a mile. 
On the Wye, Dee, Usk, and Towey the coracle is more or 
less generally in use both for rod and net. fishing. The well- 
known Trammel or ‘ Horn-net’ is often worked by this means, 
extended between two coracles. In rod-fishing a sort of anchor 
is employed to keep the boat stationary or ‘slow’ its course 
down stream—‘ putting on the drag,’ in fact. The two ap- 
pended views of coracle-fishing are taken from the picturesque 
scenery of the Dee. . . . But all this is rather in the way of a 
digression, and I apologise. 
‘A final word on the really much more portable as well as 
! The paddle is more often used at the side, being fixed between the arm 
and the body, and worked, like the single scull in a sea-going boat, with either 
hand—the paddle almost perpendicular and at the side, instead of behind like 
the scull in a sea boat.—Ep, : 
