324 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
other advantages claimed by de Oaux for improvements were the fol- 
lowing : 
1. Inside the trawl-net a smaller net is fixed so as to form a funnel to 
prevent the escape of large fishes. 
2. The cod-end of the net is made so that when fishing the meshes 
are kept widely open to allow small fishes to escape therefrom. 
3. At pleasure the net can be disconnected from the trawl-beam and 
the wheels at the bottom of the sea, and can be shut up and brought 
to the surface separately from them. 
Whatever practical value these improvements have I am not pre- 
pared to say ; the fact remains, however, that the common form of trawl 
is still almost exclusively in use. One inventor has an arrangement of 
frames, flat on the bottom and curved on top, over which the cod-end 
is drawn in such a way that the meshes are kept distended. Another 
proposes to accomplish the same result— namely ; to allow the small 
fish to escape — by having a number of rubber grommets put here and 
there in the cod-end, these being sufficiently large to permit the small 
fry to pass through ; and still another device consists in having the cod- 
end distended with larger hoops, the mesh much enlarged, and the 
lower part provided with an apron to prevent chafe on the bottom. 
2. Apparatus for Operating the Trawl. 
In order that the manipulation of the beam-trawl may be more fully 
and clearly understood, it seems desirable that the various kinds of ap 
paratus which have been devised especially for the purpose of handling 
it should be described in considerable detail. Though these form a por- 
tion of the vessel’s equipment, and have been alluded to in a general 
way in that oonnectipn, $ti]j the yarioim implement® used in working a 
