376 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION, 
this kind of fishing in all the principal fishing ports of England ; 
viz., Ramsgate, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Grimsby, Hull, Scar- 
borough, and most probably at Barking also. In its earliest days 
the net was comparatively small, and the craft on board which it 
was used not more than twenty to twenty-five tons burden. 
For many years very little increase took place, either in the size 
of the boat or net, or yet in the number of boats engaged in this 
particular fishery, probably owing to the fact that fishing by this 
method was not prosecuted very far from land, but in the bays and 
inshores of our coast. And as the consumption of fish was not so 
proportionately great as at present, and the supply always equal to 
the demand, there was no very great enterprise called forth for 
any alteration in the general method, or the size of net or craft. 
So matters went on in a very orthodox fashion, and very little 
change or improvement was thought of. But when innovations 
were suggested, and circumstances demanded more enterprise, the 
old order of things soon gave way to many improvements in both 
the vessels and appliances, and a very great increase in Trawling 
generally was the result. 
The Trawl Net is of peculiar construction, consisting of four 
distinct parts; viz., back, battings, wings, and belly. The lower 
part again is called cod-end, or bag. 
First, the back proper is a square piece of net, of 200 to 250 
meshes broad, of four inches from knot to knot, and forty to fifty 
feet deep, according to the size of the craft on board of which it 
is worked. 
Second, the battings is commenced at the lower end of the 
back or square, and by decreasing the number of meshes, by a 
very simple way of taking two meshes into one at the beginning 
of every third round. Decreasing in this way regularly till 
it is brought down to, say, fifty meshes square, finishes the 
battings; and then, by continuing to, say some eight feet, it 
makes one point of the cod-end. 
Third, the belly is constructed very similarly to the battings. 
But the wings are altogether different in construction, and 
partly form the bosom of the trawl, and are an essential part of 
the net. 
The head of the wings forms the bosom, and is commenced 
close to the head of the belly. It is begun, say, by forming 
180 meshes square, and after a few rounds are made is divided in 
