Living Silver 



many months, the chief source of his income. They didn't clutter 

 up the sea in spawning shoals for a spring season, like most other 

 fish, the Dover included. No, they remained dispersed through- 

 out the year. Each individual seemed to mature and spawn in its 

 own good time, though the spawners were usually more of a group 

 and less of a series of odd fish during the autumn months from 

 August to the beginning of October. But even that fact varied 

 from one part of a sea to another. There was no certainty about 

 the lemon. All Jan ever knew for sure, was that it was bigger and 

 more plentiful around the Faroes than in the North Sea and that 

 wherever it was caught it fetched a good price. 



HALIBUT 



Not quite the best, though. Halibut alone did that. And hali- 

 but were very queer fish. Of the flatties they were by far the most 

 powerful, the most streamlined and the most difficult to catch. 

 Yet, when caught, they fetched a price that made it worth a man's 

 while to chase them. Wherever they existed they were supreme, 

 even in Aberdeen fish-market. And the men who caught them, 

 they too were supreme, but that was another story. 



The halibut was a fish that nobody knew anything about. In- 

 vestigations were difficult because of its human value as well as its 

 natural life. Fishermen were not very anxious to tag a fish and 

 throw it back into the sea when it was worth ten pounds of ready 



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