COD, HADDOCKS, WHITING, BREAM, ETC 447 



best thing to be done with one of these fish is, to lift it in by 

 line, landing net, or gaff, and drop it on the floor of the boat. 

 Then place a foot on it to keep it still, chop off its head, and, 

 taking the carcase gingerly by the tail, cast it overboard as 

 ground-bait. In many places West-country, Ireland, and the 

 Hebrides these fish are eaten either fresh, salted, or merely 

 dried. Oil is extracted from their livers, and their garbage 

 is good manure. They are simply ubiquitous, but are most 

 plentiful in those waters most frequented by pilchards and 

 herrings. Some thirty-seven years ago an enormous shoal of 

 sea-dogs reached from Uig to Aberdeen. 



The ROUGH-HOUND is most common off the Hebrides, 

 Devon, Cornwall, and Ireland. It is variously named row-hound, 

 small or lesser spotted dogfish, curfish, kennett, daggar, huss, 

 hund-fish, land-dog, suss, and morgay. In shape it resembles 

 the other dogs, but has a rough skin, a reddish brown or 

 grey back marked with spots varying in colour black, brown 

 red and grey. This dogfish has no particular use except in 

 respect of its skin, which makes good sandpaper. 



The NURSE-HOUND, which is also called the large spotted 

 dogfish, bull huss, bounce, and catfish, resembles but is not so 

 common as the rough-hound. The principal points of differ- 

 ence are in the skin of the nurse-hound being rougher and the 

 spots larger. The two varieties are often confounded, in both 

 senses of the word, by the fishermen. Its principal use is to 

 bait crab-pots, but its skin makes excellent sandpaper. 



Bream, though not particularly estimable on the table, rank 

 rather highly among the sportsman's sea fish, being plentiful, 

 biting freely and fighting gamely. They have, however, the 

 disadvantage that they feed as a rule at night, except when the 

 water is coloured after storms, therein resembling the fish of 

 the same name found in fresh water, although of different 

 genus. 



