CH. VIII.] SPEARING FLAT-FISH OFF EYDE. 109 



I used, when a boy, to have very good oppor- 

 tunities of observing this expedient of theirs to 

 escape detection; it being one of my favourite 

 amusements, when the tide served low- water 

 spring-tide was the best time to start very early 

 in the morning, accompanied by the garden-boy, 

 each of us provided with a two-pronged steel fork, 

 elaborately sharpened, and a basket, to the sands 

 near Ryde, where in the pools left by the sea we 

 used to find and spear (or rather fork) a good 

 many stragglers, with now and then an Eel, who 

 had also forgotten himself, and been left behind 

 by the tide. The Flat-fish we were obliged to 

 approach with care, stalk them, as it were ; but 

 when an Eel was started, we had to "chevy" him 

 to his harbour amongst the stones, where with 

 care in due time we generally managed to fork 

 him. Our best morning's work, if I remember 

 right, consisted of seventy-five Flat-fish, and six 

 Eels, besides a lot of Cockles, with which, as we 

 outstayed breakfast-time, we did not disdain to 

 amuse ourselves on the road homewards, they 

 being not at all unpalatable to a hungry boy, and 

 easily opened, an office which one shell kindly per- 

 forms for another by the following very simple 

 process : Two of them are placed dos h dos with 



