But it was strongly made all the same, and consisted of a couple of rows of stout stakes driven down into the beach, just after the fashion of the figure on the opposite page, with one row towards the sea, and the other running up beside where the stream water bubbled up and towards the shore.

In and out of these stakes rough oak boughs were woven so closely, that from the bottom to about four feet up, though the water would run through easily enough, there was no room for a decent-sized fish to go through, while down at the bottom all this was strengthened by being banked up with stones inside and out, and all carefully laid and wedged in together, and cemented with lime.
Now when the tide was up all these posts and hurdles were covered with water, and as the fish swam up to meet the fresh stream, a great many would sometimes be over the ground inclosed by the weir, searching about for food washed down by the stream, or for the little shrimps and other water creatures that hung about the hurdles, which were a favourite place too with mussels, which cling to such wood-work by thousands.

Now though they are easily frightened it does not seem as if fish have much brain, for sometimes they stopped swimming about inside these hurdles till the tide had run down as low as the tops of the posts, and then, feeling it was time for them to be off with the tide, they'd start to swim off, but only to find themselves shut in.
Sometimes it would be a shoal of grey mullet, sometimes a salmon or two that had tried to get up the stream, and could not get by the pebble bar; and there they would be swimming about, not feeling their danger till it was too late.
First of all they would try to get through the hurdles, and there they would keep on trying till some wise one amongst them thought that by swimming round the ends at A or B they would reach the open sea.
Sometimes they would do this and escape.

They all follow one another like sheep in a flock; but generally they do not try to get round the ends till it is too late, for while there is still plenty of water at C there is very little at B and none at all at A, and the consequence is that the fish are left splashing when the tide goes out, in a few little shallow pools, where there is nothing to do but scoop them out with a bit of a net.
The tide was getting well down, and the hurdles were nearly all bare, but there was too much water for us to see whether there were any fish left, and so we stood on first one big boulder, and then upon another, as they were left dry, every now and then making a bold leap on to a rock, to stand there surrounded by water, and now and then obliged to jump back to avoid a wetting.
But at last the hurdles and stones at the sea end of the weir were completely left by the tide, so that we could walk down, and then, as the water shallowed more and more in the triangular inclosure, we looked out eagerly for fish.
"There they are--lots of 'em!" cried Bob excitedly, for he was too much interested to be disagreeable and say unpleasant things.
"Oh, those are only little ones," cried Bigley, as the little silvery fry kept flashing out of the surface.

"They'll all go out through the holes.