SCALES, MIRRORS, LEATHERS 



sparkling reflection. We find in them only dark 

 shades, lightened here and there by brighter patches 

 at the fins, or at the lips when the mouth opens. The 

 name of these fishes obviously comes from their skin, 

 which is entirely bare. It is a covering like supple 

 leather, thick, compact, and brownish in colour. There 

 are still a few scales to be seen, differing in number in 

 different fishes but irregular in shape and quite unlike 

 in appearance, sometimes included in the substance 

 of the skin, sometimes projecting and easy to see, but 

 always situated at the base of the fins. Everywhere else 

 there is only the skin to serve as a protective covering. 



While I was making my examination, basket after 

 basket of fish passed me on its way from the fishing 

 point to the carts. At last they all disappeared and 

 the job was done. My friend, who had been super- 

 intending the operations from first to last, came and 

 sat down beside me, with a note-book in his hand in 

 which he had put down the items, as the numbering 

 and weighing were carried on. He hurriedly added 

 up a few figures, then cried: 



" Oh, well! That's good enough for me. Indeed, 

 it's a better return than I expected. I put in four 

 thousand eight hundred young fish, and we've just 

 taken four thousand six hundred and fifty-three, 

 weighing altogether more than eleven thousand pounds, 

 nearly two and a quarter pounds a fish. I know my 

 pond is a good one, and fish get on well in it. It 

 was a good summer and I did all I could to make sure 

 that nothing went wrong. But all the same I didn't 

 hope for a result like this. It's far better than the 

 average for previous years." 



" What is the proportion between the three kinds? " 

 I asked him. " I noticed that you were at great pains 

 to count them separately. I've been sitting near the 

 baskets all the time and I made sure that they didn't 

 get mixed up. So the figures you've got there are 

 reliable enough." 



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