" FLIGHT-NETS." 
" Flight-nets " are employed in most parts of Europe. 
The net is stretched between upright poles so as to catch the 
flights of waterfowl during their nocturnal movements. On 
the shores of the Solway the fishermen in the off-season 
often utihze their nets, which they erect at the estuaries 
of the rivers, as far as possible in well-observed lines of flight. 
H. A. Macpherson writes in 1897 : " The use of flight-nets 
has extended in our own time to the Dumfriesshire Coast, 
otherwise I believe that their manipulation is unknown in 
Scotland. The nets used vary in depth from three and a 
half to six feet. They are suspended upon cords stretched 
between poles, which are set in the ground about fifteen 
yards apart. Irving Murray has used such nets on the 
Scottish side of the Solway Firth for a good many years. 
He tells me that he finds it necessary to shift the nets from 
one position to another occasionally. He lives in a cottage 
on the shore, and his * better-half ' walks down the sands 
at daybreak to take the birds out of the nets. It often 
happens that there is nothing in any of the nets except an 
odd Dunlin or a few sea-gulls ; but enough birds are taken 
in the last three months of the year to remunerate the old 
couple (the man is a Crimean veteran) for their expenditure 
upon the netting."* Writing in February, 1888, Mr. R. 
Service records that : " John Kennedy says flight-nets are 
now an established custom all along the Blackshaw. They 
were first put up some three years ago. Some good catches 
have been made. About a score of Barnacles were caught 
in each of two nights in one net lately."! 
* Hist. Fowling, p. 446. 
t R. Service's MS. Diary, February 22nd, 1888. 
