FRENCH FISHERMEN. 65 



To kill them, "it's no use knocking them on their great 

 heads, no more than a great bull ; just hit 'em a sharp 

 smack on the belly, and that turns 'em up directly, 

 because all their blood lays there." 



One of the fishermen, George Smith, caugiit a 

 ''whacker" last year. When he hauled the line he 

 thought " he had got hold of a wi'eck," but he managed 

 to pull him up gently to the side of the boat, and whip 

 the '' heaf " into him. He "kicked up Mag's diversion " 

 in the boat, and nearly got out again ; so Smith tied 

 him by the " beckett " to the thwart of the boat with a 

 new French whiting line, which Master Conger broke 

 three times. Smith himself, who is a very powerful 

 man, tried afterwards to break the same whiting line, 

 but could not. This conger measured 8 feet within an 

 inch, and was 26 inches in girth at his fins. He was 

 sent off to London directly in a "kitten," or fish- 

 hamper, all to himself. 



One day a French fishing-boat came into Folkestone 

 from Portelle, near Boulogne, the weather being too 

 rough for them ; they had a few small congers on 

 board, and I observed that they had been baiting their 

 " snoods " with the arms of cuttle-fish cut into bits. 

 They called all Englishmen " John," and when I went 

 to talk to them a red-nightcapped fellow held up a dog- 

 fish, and said in broken English, " Vil you buy a dog, 

 John ? " I did not buy the dog, but I got a conger's 

 head for threepence. The Frenchmen turned out of 

 their boats in the afternoon, and boiled the conger's 

 body on the beach, j)utting sundry odd scraps of fish 

 into their pot as well. As a bystander said, " There 'fj 

 very little fish as them chaps heaves aw^ay ; they eats 

 a'most anything." 



Congers are exceedingly sensitive to fi-ost. Dr. 



6 ^ 



