THE COD FAMILY AND THE SAND-EELS 267 



mackerel, turbot, and many other fishes, both round and flat, 

 the sand-eels are familiar only on certain parts of the coast 

 where there is a special seine-fishery for them. Elsewhere 

 their retiring habits, and the ease with which they burrow 

 in the shifting sandbanks, make them strangers to even the 

 average resident. One such fishery is named by Mcintosh 

 and Masterman at Elie, in the Forth estuary, and there is 

 another at the mouth of the Teign, in Devon, close to 

 which, indeed, within 500 yards of the nets, the writer has 

 resided during four summers. 



Both the sand-eel and launce have close aflinities with the 

 cod family, though they are referred to as a family of their 

 own, and it is, therefore, convenient to consider these two fishes 

 in the present chapter. They are caught at Teignmouth in 

 varying proportions, one or the other predominating on 

 different days, or sometimes in about equal quantities. A long 

 series of notes on the subject, however, extending over the 

 period-named, has not enabled the writer to offer any explanation 

 of the relative numbers in which the two are taken in the nets. 



At any rate, there is no fear of mistaking one for the other, 

 in spite of the fact that Mr. Cunningham says that they are 

 " so much alike that it is very difficult to distinguish one from 

 the other, but there seems to be no doubt whatever of their 

 independence." This is amazing reading to one who has 

 never found any difficulty in selecting the sand-eel and reject- 

 ing the launce — the latter is far inferior as bait — even in the 

 half-light of a summer evening, and it almost prompts a doubt 

 as to whether so careful an observer of fish can really have 

 seen both side by side. The launce is deep or pale green, 

 unmistakably green ; the sand-eel is never green. These, by 

 the way, are the names by which the two go at Teignmouth, 

 where they are also collectively known as " sprats." On other 

 parts of the coast the launce is known as the Greater, the 

 sand-eel as the Lesser, Sand-eel. 



The Launce {Ammodytes lanceolatus), or Greater Sand-eel, 



