When the tide flows up, the fish can with ease go in between the
points of these cross-bars, but the mill being shut down they can
go no farther upwards; and when the water ebbs again, they are left
behind, not being able to pass the points of the grating, as above,
outwards; which, like a mouse-trap, keeps them in, so that they are
left at the bottom with about a foot or a foot and a half of water.
We were carried hither at low water, where we saw about fifty or
sixty small salmon, about seventeen to twenty inches long, which
the country people call salmon-peal; and to catch these the person
who went with us, who was our landlord at a great inn next the
bridge, put in a net on a hoop at the end of a pole, the pole going
cross the hoop (which we call in this country a shove-net). The
net being fixed at one end of the place, they put in a dog (who was
taught his trade beforehand) at the other end of the place, and he
drives all the fish into the net; so that, only holding the net
still in its place, the man took up two or three and thirty salmon-
peal at the first time.
Of these we took six for our dinner, for which they asked a
shilling (viz., twopence a-piece); and for such fish, not at all
bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen six-and-sixpence each given
at a London fish-market, whither they are sometimes brought from
Chichester by land carriage.
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