two thousand yards in length. Its height or
depth is from twenty to twenty-four feet, but it
may be sunk to different levels in the water by
arrangement of the buoy- ropes. The nets,
spread at night from, buoys, drift with the
tide, and the fish are caught as before
described.

Heresy in catching herrings is the use of the
trawl, which is, in truth, simply a seine-net
without a distinct pocket. For herring fishery,
it has found acceptance among us only in the
west of Scotland, and at one or two places on
the eastern coast. It first appeared as an
exceptional notion five-and-twenty years ago, but
it is only during the last seventeen years that it
has been anywhere defended or adopted as a
system. The Scotch trawlers for herring
generally use rowing boats, worth fourteen or fifteen
pounds apiece, which work in pairs. The trawl
net when mounted is worth from fifteen to twenty
pounds; it should have meshes of the orthodox
size, but some trawlers, for a reason hereafter
to be given, have had as many as forty or forty-
five instead of thirty-six squares to the yard. In
fishing, the trawl-net, buoyed by corks, has
drag ropes attached to it. One end is held firm
either on shore or in a stationary boat, or
attached to a buoy, while the other, on board
the row boat, is carried out, and then, by rowing
round in a circle, brought back to the stationary
point; whatever fish the trawl can sweep and
hold being thus brought together in a net that,
before it is lifted, has been turned round on
itself into the shape of a bag. The fish bagged
in this way are of all kinds, but chiefly herring:
the ground being trawled where herring is known
to be abundant.

This manner of fishing for herring was, twelve
years ago, made illegal. Herrings might only
be caught by the drift net. But the act to this
effect was not constructed to secure its end. It
hardly repressed trawling, even the Fishery
Board does not seem to have respected it, and
the bolder fishermen trawled on, till an outcry
from the drift-net interests and the great curers
produced an act of eighteen 'sixty, giving greater
restrictive powers, and confiscating all the nets
of trawl fishers. It did not confiscate the fish
or boats, and the nets were not difficult to hide
under the sea. Still, therefore, the purpose of
the act was missed; but the wisdom of Parliament
contrived, as often happens, to achieve
something that it did not intend. It forbade
nets that might be used illegally for catching
herrings, to be used at all during the herring
season. This ruined the sprat fishers. Fishing
for sprats is a source of livelihood to many, in
the Firth of Forth, during the winter months.
It is a fishery that requires the use of a trawl
with small meshes; and as the herring fishery,
when all trawls were liable to seizure, was
appointed to continue from the end of May to the
last day of December, great misery was produced
among those who depended on sprat fishing for
their bread.

Therefore, in the following year, 'sixty-one,
the wisdom of Parliament produced a new act
to legalise fishing for sprats; and at the same
time ordained seizure of boats and fish, as well
as of nets, from persons who were caught trawling
for herrings. This did almost put an end to the
trawling, and thereby caused hunger in many
families on Loch Fyne and elsewhere. But, at
the same time, bewildered by conflicting
statements, the wisdom of Parliament appointed three
efficient men to go and see what was the truth
of the whole matter. They went, they saw, and
they have just reported that the whole course of
meddling with the trawlers has been an injurious
mistake.

The argument of drift-net orthodoxy against
admitting within the pale of the law, heretics
who trawl, is fairly reduced to the following
seven heads: " (1.) Because immature herring
may be caught by trawling. (2.) Because, as they
consider, the seine-nets disturb and disperse
the shoals of fish in entering the estuaries from
the sea, and in consequence the fish desert the
waters which they would otherwise have
frequented. They term this 'breaking the eye of
the fish,' and assert that when the shoal is thus
scattered, it does not again unite. (3.) They
state that the seme fishers sweep across the beds
where the fish are depositing their spawn, and
not only take the spawning herring, but destroy
the spawn which has been deposited. (4.)
They consider that the herring caught by the
seine are not fit for curing, on account of the
injury received by them in their capture. (5.)
They accuse the trawlers or seiners of being a
turbulent set of men, who wanton in mischief,
and love to cut away drift-nets, or stab the buoys
which float them, and thus produce much damage
to property. (6.) They deny that the two
systems can be carried on together in narrow
waters, as the trawlers get foul of the drift-nets,
and drive away the fish which would have meshed
themselves. (7.) They state that the extravagant
gains of the trawlers, monopolised by a few,
alter the market prices by sudden fluctuations, to
the great detriment of the drift-net fishermen,
who prosecute their labour in a more steady and
less gambling manner."

To each count of this indictment the reply of
the trawlers, brought into an equally small
compass, is as follows: "(1.) They admit
that, when the mesh of the net is less than the
legal standard, they catch immature fish; but
they deny that it is their interest as a class to do
so, and state that larger and finer herrings were
caught by the trawl than can be got by the drift-
net. (2.) They deny that the enclosure of herring
in a circle by a net drawn gently round them in a
retired locality on the coast, can disturb the
general shoal of fish so much as their meeting
numerous walls of netting, often miles in length,
let down into the sea to obstruct their progress.
(3.) They deny interference with the spawning-
beds, asserting that there is only a small market
for full fish on the west coast, and that it is not
their interest to catch fish in that condition. They
state that the destruction of the spawning-beds
was not produced by them, but by the drift-net
fishermen on the coast of Ayrshire, who sunk