SURFACE-FEEDING SEA FISH 373 



good bugs of them on the Yorkshire coast when paternostering 

 for cod, using mussels as bait. Coalfish spawn in the spring, 

 and by August attain the cuddy size of about four or five 

 inches, when little bare-legged youngsters sit on projecting rocks 

 and catch dozens of them. 



I have a lively recollection of initiating some ladies into 

 this small form of sea fishing, one stormy day in the Lews. 

 An immense trap dyke runs for some distance into the land, 

 exhibiting on the coast a sheer wall of rock between two and 

 three hundred feet high, which trends in gigantic steps down 

 to the water. On one of these steps, in shelter of the rocks 

 rising abruptly behind us, we sat in mackintoshes and cared 

 little for a south-west gale which sprang up. 



We began about low water, and then the little fish would 

 only feed near the bottom. Our hooks were of the smallest, baited 

 with fragments of the dwarfed mussels growing almost at hand 

 among the crevices. As {he tide rose, the fish came gradu- 

 ally nearer the surface, until, at the full flood, they were feeding 

 within a foot of our little cork floats. The rain ceased, but the 

 wind blew harder than ever, and I shall never forget our walk 

 back to the lodge along the top of the cliffs. The whole country 

 was running water, and every few yards small streams were 

 pouring over the edge of the cliffs. But these hastily impro- 

 vised waterfalls had not dropped a fathom before the wind 

 caught them and hurled them back on to the moor, deluging 

 us with the drainings of the land. However, home we brought 

 our cuddies dead eleven dozen of them and delicate eating 

 they proved that night at dinner. The following day they 

 were soft and watery. 



A friend living in the islands still further north caught no 

 fewer than two hundred score of cuddies in one winter ; but 

 these were fish varying from three-quarters of a pound to one 

 and a half pound. In Orkney there is a spring run of coalfish 



