130 FISHER-DOa OUT SEA-FISHING. [PART I. 



ing effort was made, and the fish landed safely on 

 terra firma. He was then a proud and a happy 

 dog. He had done his work well in his own 

 opinion, and evidently considered himself to be 

 off duty for a time, and entitled, in common with 

 ourselves, to take a rest and divert himself, which, 

 after inspecting the fish, and superintending the 

 process of weighing it, he accordingly set about 

 doing in his own way, that is, instead of smoking 

 a pipe over it as we did, he, after a preliminary 

 stretch and roll on the heather, took out his relax- 

 ation in a hunt (not however often attended with 

 much success) after field-mice. 



Of sea-fishing too he was very fond, and, when 

 hand-lines were employed, would look over the 

 side as a line was hauled in, and await the appear- 

 ance of the up-coming fish with the keenest inter- 

 est. The method I have elsewhere described of 

 trailing with a number of flies on the same line he 

 never seemed thoroughly to understand, appar- 

 ently considering that one, or at the most two, fish 

 at a time was as much as could possibly be ex- 

 pected, and when a string of about a dozen came 

 in one after the other, he got into a state of per- 

 fectly bewildered excitement. 



But what he peculiarly delighted in was fishing 



