SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 353 



added the figures for the " weight " net in each of the 

 three examples above for comparison with the two surface 

 nets. 



The August hauls give us practically the same 

 results. There were 16 double hauls, and if we omit one 

 that seems very exceptional in character, in 5 of these 

 the otter net had the largest catch, in 5 the stern net 

 caught more, and in the remaining 5 cases the catches 

 were equal. The average catch for the otter net is 0*27 c.c, 

 and for the stern net O30 c.c, while for the weight net, 

 worked at the same time in a deeper zone, the average is 

 0-35 c.c. 



Comparison of " Funnel " with Wide-mouthed Net. 



As a further development of the experiments with 

 the " Pulley-net " described in last year's Report, we 

 added, in '09, canvas inverted funnels in front of most of 

 our nets in order to limit the intake of water, and 

 consequently the pressure on the net. The inverted 

 funnel, suspended by its narrower end and joining the 

 ring of the tow-net by its wider, reduced the opening of 

 the net from 14 to 5 inches. As various opinions had been 

 expressed as to what the result of thus reducing the 

 mouth of the net would be, one of the older type of simple 

 open-mouthed tow-nets was used constantly as a surface 

 net alongside the funnel net, with the result that the 

 latter invariably caught more, and frequently a great deal 

 more — up to 12 times as much. The average of 30 double 

 hauls gives 1'52 c.c. for the open net, and 4*36 c.c. for the 

 funnel net — one to three nearly. Having satisfied 

 ourselves that restricting the opening by means of the 

 canvas funnel leads to a greater, that is a more representa- 

 tive, catch, we shall in future use funnels with all our 

 surface tow-nets. 



