necessity, he grew in favor with the Parliamentarians, and was Cromwell's poet laureate, writing Latin verse to order, in a highly panegyric style. At the Restoration he merely changed his dedications; but despite the satirical pamphlets he directed against his late patrons, he fell out of favor at Court and died poor. Two prose works which he wrote while in Fleet Prison are of some importance because they describe Tombs, Monuments, and Sepulchral Inscriptions which were destroyed in the great fire.
FISHER, Sydney George (1856—). An American lawyer and writer, born in Philadelphia, he graduated at Trinity College in 1879, studied law at the Harvard Law School for two years, and in 1883 was admitted to the bar at Philadelphia. His publications, which are mostly on subjects connected with American history, have attained considerable popularity. They include, in addition to numerous magazine articles: The Making of Pennsylvania (1896); Pennsylvania, Colony and Commonwealth (1897); The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States (1897); Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times (2 vols., 1898); The True Benjamin Franklin (1899); The True William Penn (1900); and The True Story of the Revolutionary War (1902).
FISHER, William Arms (1861—). An American song-composer, born in San Francisco, Cal. He received his first lesson in music from John P. Morgan, a leading Western musician. Intended for a business career, he was led to devote himself entirely to music, and with that end in view he left California (1890) and went to New York. There he studied counterpoint, canon, and fugue with Horatio Parker, and later, winning a scholarship in the National Conservatory of Music, he was enabled to study composition and orchestration under Anton Dvořák. He was instructor in harmony at the Conservatory of Music for several years, resigning in 1895 to take up teaching in Boston. He is essentially and preëminently a song-composer, and has met with unqualified success in his chosen field.
FISHERIES. The capture of various kinds of fish for the purpose of trade has always been extensively carried on in maritime countries and in those which are watered by large rivers, and has been the means in many instances of adding greatly to their prosperity. The art has been brought only by degrees to its present perfection, but in nothing did primitive man exhibit greater ingenuity and skill than in the taking of fish, and they were effectively preserved, and formed a large element in savage sustenance and barter in all parts of the world. The importance of fisheries in the food-supplies of nations, inland as well as maritime, and as offering a remunerative return for labor, can scarcely be overestimated. One great peculiarity of this source of wealth is that the sea harvest is ripened without trouble or expense for the fisher, who only requires to provide the means of gathering it.
Means of Capture. Lines. The principal means of capturing fishes are nets and the hook and line. The hand-line is much used for ordinary fishing, but where this is carried on extensively at sea, a ‘set’ or ‘long’ line must be used. This is known in America as a trawl. These set-lines vary with the kind of fishing, but they are all built on the general plan of a long line, to which at interval shorter lines bearing the hooks are attached. The line is weighted at the ends or at intervals. It may he provided with floats at intermediate distances, so that the hooks near the weights catch bottom fishes and the others those at middle depths. These lines are set in varying lengths, but a well-equipped fishing schooner will operate several miles of trawl, carrying 10,000 to 15,000 hooks. The boats from which so extensive lines are operated are provided with winches to bring up the lines from the great depths.
Hand lines are such as are manipulated with the hand. They have one or several hooks, and are set, or sometimes are drawn or ‘trolled’ through the water from a boat. The black bass, bluefish, pickerel (qq.v.), and other predaceous species are taken by this method.
Nets and Weirs. The principal nets are the beam-trawl, the gill-net, and seine. In America the ‘long line’ is known as a trawl, but in England this term refers to a large, purse-shaped net attached to a front beam, which is weighted and dragged at varying depths near or along the bottom for bottom fishes, such as soles and flounders. This is one of the principal method of fishing in the British waters. Trawls are often of great size, 75 to 100 feet in length, and are used at great depths, requiring vessels of considerable strength. Gill-nets or drift nets are extensively used both in the seas and in inland waters, since they are suitable to any water of sufficient depth to float them properly. They are set or drifted across channels or across the course of migration of fishes. Schools of fishes, striking the net, will become entangled. This is one of the favorite methods for capturing species that move in schools at or near the surface, such as the herring, and which cannot be easily trapped or taken with the line. The seine is a long net of varying depth, weighted along the lower edge to keep this at the bottom, while the upper edge is provided with floats sufficiently strong to support the seine and keep it vertically stretched. It is usually intended to be dragged to the shore, or to some prearranged platform; but one form for use in the open sea, called a ‘purse-net,’ has a rope along the bottom by which that part may be gathered together, forming a deep bag, within which the fishes may be crowded into a small space near the surface, and then dipped out. Pound-nets and fyke nets are fixed traps. Pound-nets consist of a long wing, or ‘leader,’ supported on stakes, and forming a fence which runs from near shore out to varying distances, and terminates in a labyrinthine inclosure forming a trap. Fishes swimming against the wing and seeking to pass around it are led out to the trap, entering which they are imprisoned. The pound-net is simply a modern and improved form of the ancient weir (still in service in various parts of the world), which was composed of stakes and wattle or lines of planted brush instead of netting. Fyke-nets are long, cylindrical bags, supported at intervals by hoops. The entrance is by a funnel leading into one or more compartments, separated by similar funnel-shaped partitions, through which the fish will not return. This net may be supplied with wings, like the ordinary pound-net or weir, leading the fish into the funnel-opening. Fykes are set at the bottom, and may be used at considerable depths. For information as to towing
