SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 105 
amongst the birds is his joy still ; and in the pleasures of 
our favourite study, how well do I remember, then, when 
receiving my first lessons, and that unknowingly, with what 
enthusiasm I followed my father with his fishing crew, 
trawling the sand-banks and shores of my native bay. 
Standing by the back rope of the net, with the risk of a 
good sousing to my little breeches, with mingled feelings of 
fear, amazement, and joy, 1 saw, for the first time, a pro- 
miscuous gathering of the living creatures of the deep come 
sailing in upon the wings of the net, and stretching away 
down into the capacious bag. What curious things of 
beauty were there! "Here is this, and there is that," I 
heard the men say ; and " This is such and such," localised 
names, I afterwards learned, of various creatures. In silence 
I got my first impressions, but many times after, in my 
anxiety to learn something of the strange things I saw and 
got hold of, my questions, I fear, partook too much of the 
hinderment of the work, and were not always treated with 
politeness. 
The style of bank trawling is simply the salmon-fishers' 
drag system, launching forth with a long rope into the 
deep. The net being attached to it is shot in a half-circle, 
and sinks in that fashion to the bottom, through lead 
weights attached to the sole rope, and buoyed up to its full 
depth by corks attached to the back rope. The boat then 
returns to the shore with another rope the same length, 
and both sides being dragged in evenly, the net is landed 
high and dry upon the beach, with whatever it contains. 
Life is dear to every living creature, and the most insignifi- 
cant of living things, both in land and sea, seem to have a 
dread of suffering and death. With a good shot of fish in 
the net, I have seen the creatures make frantic efi"orts to 
escape when they found themselves hemmed in, particularly 
