io6 FISHEJiMEN'S OWN BOOK. 



ous species. One kind does not build a cell at all, and is known as the 

 naked annelid. 



But stop! I feel a halibut tugging away below. There he heaves in sight. 

 Keep steady in the dory while I get my gaff in his head, and do not be 

 alarmed when I heel the crank little craft over to take the big fellow in. 

 After I get his head on the gunwale he slides into the bottom of the boat 

 as easily as if he were helping himself in. 



I can see two or three codfish coming along next. One of them is a large 

 one. Look how lazily that fifty-pounder rolls up alongside. He seems to 

 accept the situation as if he had been expecting it. If he could speak he 

 might give mouth (what a mouth !) to the following: " Here I come. Whip 

 out your gaff and help me aboard without any fuss. I've been looking for 

 this a long time past. I put all my affairs in order when I reached forty 

 pounds weight, and have been ready to fulfil my destiny at any time since." 

 How differently does that "snapper," or young codfish, appear to act. He 

 darts about, as far as the hook will allow, and seems to have vitality enough 

 for a dozen years to come. After he is unhooked he flutters about and 

 won't be resigned in any place, but seems to protest to the last against the 

 fate which cuts him off in the pride of his youth. And who can believe but 

 his view is the soundest, if it were practicable to let him alone.'' 



But what have we here? As I live, it's a turbot. You will make a deli- 

 cious meal from this fellow, I'll warrant. We do not save them for market, 

 there being apparently little demand for them in the States. If I were a 

 gourmand, and had the means wherewith to gratify my appetite, I would 

 offer his weight in silver for one of these paragons of all that is delicate and 

 rich among fish flavors. 



Passing over numerous codfish, and an occasional halibut, we haul along 

 till we come to a comparative stranger on the Grand Bank — would that he 

 had been a stranger on Georges and some other Banks I've fished on — a 

 dogfish. If you would cultivate angelic patience, or haply sound the depth 

 of wickedness to which it would be possible to goad you, go out on Western 

 Georges in Dog(fish) days and haul a trawl of one thousand hooks with a 

 dogfish on every hook. Whichever course you adopt, if you succeed in 

 fighting it out on that line to the end, will have brought you to the extreme 

 limits of goodness, or to the border of Hades. Their skin is so rough that 

 before you have unhooked fifty the probability is that your thumb and finger 

 will be getting raw, to say nothing of the dexterity with which the green- 

 eyed wretch comes back after having his jaw hauled half out with the hook, 

 and swims around as if to intimate that you have been exhausting your pa- 

 tience or your passion on him without disturbing his equilibrium in the 

 least. 



The trawl is coming up from a ledge now, as you may see by the pretty 



