136 ACANTHOPTERYGII. — SCOMBRID^. 
the net fastened to one end, is tied, at the other, 
to a post or rock, on the shore. The boat is then 
rowed to the extremity of the rope, when a pole, 
fixed there, and leaded heavily at the bottom, is 
thrown overboard. The rowers from this place 
make as nearly as possible a semicircle, two men 
continually and regularly putting the net into the 
water. When they come to the other end of the 
net, where there is another leaded pole, they | 
throw that overboard. Another coil of rope, i 
similar to the first, is, by degrees, thrown into 
the water, as the boatmen make for the shore. 
The crew now land, and with the assistance of 
persons stationed there, haul in each end of the 
net till they come to the two poles. The boat 
is then again pushed off towards the centre of 
the net, in order to prevent the more vigorous 
fish from leaping over the corks. By these means 
three or four hundred fish are often caught at 
one haul.”^ 
Mr. Couch has described a variation in the use 
of this net, by which, in deep water, it is cast 
around a shoal of Mackerel, so as to inclose it, 
as if with a circular wall : then the bottom being 
drawn together, it forms a deep and wide bag, 
out of which the fishes are dipped into the boats. 
The former mode is, however, the less expensive 
of the two. 
The boats employed in the drift-fishing are 
carefully built, combining security with speed in 
a degree, perhaps, not surpassed by those of any 
other of our fisheries. They are usually about 
thirty feet in the keel, with great depth of waist, 
and breadth of beam ; built of oak or ash timber, 
* Bingley’s Animal Biography, hi. 261. 
