THE SHEEP S-HEAD. 403 



generous fish, taken nearly in the same waters, and with the 

 same bait — any, to wit, of the fresh-water molluscas, and, above 

 all, with the cray-fish — which is as excellent as this other is 

 abominable on the table : 



" This is a villain in general estimation — the pest of the 

 fisher for Bass — a fish that putteth the cook, who would 

 render him acceptable at table, in a quandary — from which, I 

 am sorry to say, I cannot relieve her, though she be at her 

 wits' end. 



"He is generally brown, grey, or reddish above, and of a 

 dead, impure white below. His head is large, and his body is 

 flattened laterally, though the frying-pan rejecteth him. His 

 ordinary Aveight is two or three pounds, though he sometimes 

 weighs five and even six. His food, his haunts, his habits, are 

 similar to those of the Black Bass, whom he ever accompanieth, 

 as though he were intended by nature as a foil to set off the 

 merits of that jewel of the flood. He is despised, yea, detested, 

 by the choleric angler, who pulls him out, and then dasheth him 

 upon the stones. 



" The Sheep's-head of the sea is a lusty, crafty fish, bepraised 

 alike by the fisherman and the epicure. At the turn of the tide 

 he takes the whole soft clam on your hook at a mouthful, and 

 chews it, shell and all, and pulls like a Salmon as you draw him 

 in; and his radiant, deep and broad-barred sides — as he flaps 

 about on the sands of that low islet in the great south bay of 

 Long Island, to which you have just hauled him — how bril- 

 liantly they show, and make you think of the dying Dolphin, 

 and of old Arion ! And Avhen he reposes at the head of the 

 table — fit place for him — beautiful, though boiled, how heartfelt 



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