74*2 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
Genus GOBIO. 
Base of flie dorsal fin less than twice as Jong as that of the anal. Branched rays in the dorsal fin at most 8, 
in the anal at most 7. Neither of these fins with any spiniferous ray. Scales middle-sized — 40 or a few more 
in the lateral line — and rather thin. Distance between the anal fin and the vent about equal in length 
to the base 
In this genus and the following one we pass fr.om 
the Macroenteric Cyprinoids and also draw nearer to 
the Leuciscine group, the dorsal tin being reduced both 
in the number of the rays and the length of the base. 
The external form of the body is also approximated 
to the Leuciscine type. Still its affinity to the genus 
Barbus , which abounds especially in India, connects 
Gobio with the true Carps. The genus Gobio was 
of the fin. 
established by Cuvier" as a subgenus of Cyprinus / 
but Fleming 6 was the first to adopt it as the name of 
a distinct genus. Only two species, both European, 
have hitherto been recognised within this genus. One 
of them, the smaller, but more elongated of the two 
( Gobio uranoscopus ), belongs exclusively to Austria and 
Bavaria. The other is 
tlie fish comes in contact with the inner net, it pushes a part thereof in front of it through one of the meshes of the outer net, and is 
thus enclosed in a kind of pocket, from which it cannot retreat. The size of the meshes in the outer net varies according to the depth of 
the trammel, which should be five meshes deep. In the inner net, which is to form the pockets, the netting should be deeper, a trammel 
12 dm. deep requiring an inner net 16 1 /, dm. in depth. The art of constructing a trammel-net is difficult enough; but space permits us 
only to refer the reader to the figure. The head rope (Sw. flarntelnen ) should, if possible, be furnished with round floats (Sw. flam ) of pine- 
bark, attached at a distance of 17 — 20 cm. from each other. The foot rope (Sw. stentelnen ) should be weighted with plummets of lead. 
At each end of the head rope a so-called ‘shoe’ is fastened. The shoe is made of wood, in the form of a pointed and hollow cone, and 
from its base there projects a wooden disk, pierced at the end with a hole, by means of which the shoe is attached to the head line. 
In addition to the net described above the fisherman should have a coble or punt, furnished at the prow with a ring of iron, rope, 
or twisted rushes, about 15 cm. in diameter. The pole , with which the net is shot, is made of spruce, and should be 7 or 8 metres 
long, not too thick to be easily grasped by the hand, and not so thin as to bend beneath the weight of the net. The tackle should be 
completed by a so-called ‘beater’, with shaft 4 or 5 metres long. The shaft should consist of a thin stake, sharpened like a sword at one 
end to enable the fisherman to drive it with ease into the bottom, and furnished at the other end with a lump of wood which varies in shape, 
but generally resembles a hemisphere hollowed into the form of a funnel. When this end of the ‘beater’ is thrust into the water, the air 
contained in the hollow is forced below the surface, and increases the noise of the blow. 
Armed with these implements, the fisherman betakes himself some fine summer day to a shore overgrown with grass or reeds. When 
he has found a suitable spot, he passes the pointed shaft of the beater through the ring at the prow of the coble, and drives it into the 
bottom hard enough to moor his boat safely. Then he lets down the net, which should have been properly arranged beforehand, into the 
water at the bows, takes the pole, inserts its end into the shoe, and thus shoves out the net in an oblique direction towards the shore. When 
he has spread half the net to the full length of the pole, he suddenly plucks the latter out of the shoe, and the net stays in position. He 
now inserts the tip of the pole in the same manner into the shoe at the other end of the trammel, and sets this part of the net in a si- 
milar way, so that, when both halves of the net are shot, it lies in the form of a snow-plough (V), with the entrance of the angle turned 
towards the shore, and its point towards the bows of the coble. The fisherman next draws up the ‘beater’, adjusts the middle part of the 
net, the part which the length of the pole has not enabled him to set before, and with the aid of the ‘beater’ pushes the coble round one 
end of the net towards the shore. Having got as close in shore as possible, and keeping the net in front of him, he turns the other end 
of the ‘beater’ downwards, and plunges it into the water in the direction of the net, thus driving the fish before him, and gradually pushing 
the coble forward, until he is able to touch the net with the ‘beater’. With the same implement he then lifts the foot rope of the net 
above the surface, takes the foot rope and head rope in his hand, and draws up the net into the boat. After arranging the trammel by 
taking one of the ropes in each hand and laying the net carefully in the coble, he proceeds to another spot, where he repeats the operation. 
When the trammel-net is so large that two men are required to manage it, it is set like a seine in a semicircle, and when they are 
ready, one of the fishermen rows the coble from land towards the trammel, while the other stands in the boat and with the ‘beater drives 
the fish into the net. 
a R'egn. Anim., ed. 1, tom. II, p. 193. 
6 Brit. Anim., p. 186. 
