bulletin oe the united states fish commission. 391 
The vessels sailing from Ostend carry each six men in a crew, while 
four men is the average crew on the Heyst and Blankenberghe trawlers. 1 
3. Apparatus. 
In most essential particulars the trawls used on the larger class of 
Belgian trawlers are constructed on the same general plan as those em- 
ployed by the English. 
There are some differences, however, in details, as may be gathered 
from the following description of a trawl exhibited in the Belgian sec- 
tion at London. 
The foot of this net was first hung to a small hemp rope about the 
size of ordinary nine-thread ratline stuff*. This small rope is seized, 
at intervals of six inches, to a larger hemp rope — about If inches in 
circumference — and the latter is fastened, by galvanized iron-wire seiz- 
ings, to the foot-rope proper, which is 4f-inch manilla. Attached to 
Fig. 29. Foot rope of Belgian trawl. 
the ground rope, by stout iron rings, are festoons or loops of chain, the 
rings being 6 inches apart and there being five or six links of chain in 
each loop. Fig. 29 is a section of the foot of a Belgian trawl, and 
shows this peculiarity of construction. This chain attachment is for 
the purpose of making the ground rope “bite” the bottom; that is, 
dig into it so as to disturb any flat fish, like soles, for instance, that 
cling close to the ground and partially bury themselves. One would 
think, however, that this plan might be objectionable, because if the 
ground rope should be caught up on rough bottom, it seems probable 
that the trawl- warp would part before the chain, and, consequently, the 
whole gear would be lost. 
The Belgian trawl-head (Fig. 30) has very nearly the same shape as the 
head-irons used by the Hull and Grimsby fishermen, differing chiefly 
from the latter in the after part of the curve, from the beam to the shoe, 
being of round iron instead of flat, and in having the eye for the ground 
rope to bend into inside of the lower after corner instead of forming a 
1 Since the above was written steam trawlers have been built in Scotland for the 
Belgian fishery. 
