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There are two kinds of nets against which a well founded 

 charge has been brought, of causing a useless or extensive de- 

 struction of young fishes; but the difference between them is 

 great, both in the amount of injury inflicted, and in the ease 

 with which their use may be regulated. 



The Ground Sean as employed in Cornwall, is simply a 

 sweep net of indefinite length and depth, according to the 

 shallowness of the water, and the extent of clear space it is 

 intended to encircle. A district interrupted by rocks or large 

 stones does not admit of its employment. Moderately calm 

 weather in the summer or autumn, when the fish wander near 

 the shore, is the time chosen, and the morning or evening the 

 only periods of the day ; and all that seems necessary to 

 render it unobjectionable, is to fix the dimensions of the 

 meshes, which should not be less than an inch and half from 

 knot to knot ; and to forbid the use of a double net, which by 

 causing the meshes to cover each other, is even more destruc- 

 tive than a single net with meshes of very small size. 



The ground sean is not always drawn on the shore with its 

 contents ; but when the middle space is formed into an hollow 

 or bunt, it is employed after the manner of a tuck sean, and 

 all it encloses is taken into the boat. It should be born in 

 mind that the temptation to make the meshes of this net of 

 small size, does not chiefly arise from a wish to catch the 

 smaller fishes, which would sell for very little in the market; 

 but it is to prevent the fish from becoming entangled in the 

 meshes of the net, a circumstance that will add greatly to the 

 fisherman's labour, with some injury to the fish and more to 

 the net. Pilchard and Mackarel seans are of the nature of the 

 sweep or ground net, and were originally the same, of somewhat 

 larger size and smaller mesh. The minute size of the latter 

 has been made lawful by a special enactment, on account of 

 the great importance of the Pilchard fishery; and the fortu- 

 nate invention of a tuck sean, by enabling the fisherman to 

 employ a larger principal net and to go further from the shore, 

 has obviated what might well have been feared, the destruc- 

 tion of a large quantity of small fishes. 



The Trawl in its present form is probably a modern inven- 

 tion, and may be judged to have attained its present state of 

 efficiency by a gradual process of improvement. Its use has 

 at least increased within the space of half a century, though 

 something like it seems to have been known in the age of 

 Oppian : and I ha\e been informed by an individual then 

 engaged in the fishery, that in the year 1781, there were no 

 more than two vessels so employed, from the port of Ply- 

 mouth, both being open or without a deck, and neither ex- 

 ceeding the burthen of 25 tons. The number now from the 

 same place is but Utile short of thirty, of about the average 



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