300 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
are provided with one or two wings, which may he used with or without leaders. 
When a leader is used it very often does not extend from the shore. The reference to 
“outer openings ” in the definition quoted is not clear; a typical fyke net has only one 
outer opening, and the hoop on which it is formed may he from 1 to 15 feet in diameter. 
There is no limit to the number of funnels, from one to five often being used. All the 
hoops may be of the same size. 
As a result of the researches made by the writer and a study of the forms of 
fyke nets used in this and other countries, the conclusion has been reached that the 
designation fyke net should be reserved for that form of fish trap characterized by a 
bag-shaped inclosure, made of netting, distended at its mouth by a hoop, the opening 
into which consists of a funnel-shaped aperture; that all other features are secondary 
and do not determine whether a given apparatus is or is not a fyke net, although a 
style so simple as that defined is rare. 
The forms of apparatus to which the fyke net is related are various. On the one 
hand are some types of lobster and eel pots, baskets, and other similar traps pro- 
vided with a funnel-shaped entrance, but usually made of laths, splints, or casks and 
having no accessory leader or wings, and on the other hand are varieties of trawl 
nets, bag nets, and si mi lar closed nets that may be distended by means of one or 
more hoops but have no funnel-like aperture. An examination of any of these nets 
will usually show the essential features by which they are distinguished from the 
fyke. The intergradations, however, between fyke nets and some types of pots and 
traps are such that it is not always possible to properly characterize some of the 
more aberrant forms. In the present paper it has been considered desirable to class 
as fykes certain nets that are ordinarily designated pots. 
NAMES OF THE FYKE NET. 
This net is generally known throughout the United States as the fyke or fyke net. 
The name appears to have arisen from the Dutch word fuik , and was doubtless intro- 
duced by colonists from the Netherlands, where it is or was applied to a form of net 
constructed of hoops or of bowed twigs. The usual spelling of the word in early 
writings is “ like.” 
The name “hoop net” is also used in parts of this country — most frequently in 
the Great Lake region. In Great Britain this is the designation generally employed. 
“Stationary hoop net” also appears to have had a local usage in New York in the early 
part of this century, but has not recently been met with. 
In the Hudson, Delaware, Potomac, and other rivers of the East Coast fishermen 
often refer to the fyke as a “pike net.” Although the pike ( Lucius reticulatus ) is 
often caught in this way, it seems probable that the name is a corruption. 
A number of other names with a more or less circumscribed habitat have been met 
with, and there are doubtless others that have not been recorded. “Buckdart” and 
“sink net” are heard in certain parts of Chesapeake Bay. In Saginaw Biver, Michi- 
gan, fyke nets are known as “gobblers.” Nets that resemble pound nets in having 
leaders and curved wings are in parts of Virginia called “funnel-mouthed pounds.” 
The name bow net, of which fyke net is said in the dictionaries to be a synonym, 
has not been met with in this country, although it may nevertheless be used. The 
name bow net, as employed in the fisheries of the United States, is, so far as known, 
applied only to the dip net and the skim net. 
