THE SEA FISHER IN FOREIGN PARTS 467 



ployed ; and poisonous substances are not unknown for 

 stupefying fish after the manner of the Irish spurge-laurel 

 sportsmen. Indeed, there is a compound used in the Adriatic 

 for this purpose which is extracted from one of the Euphorbias. 



There is excellent bass fishing on the rock-girt islands of 

 the Grecian seas, and Yarrell mentions the Ionian method of 

 catching the garfish, or sea pike : a small dummy raft rigged 

 with masts and sailed like the toy boats on the Serpentine, is 

 employed to carry out a long line which is kept up by floats, 

 and from which depend short hair lines with baited hooks. 

 This is something of the principle of the otter fishing of 

 the British Islands, and in the Mediterranean we may also 

 discover an imitation of the Solway stake nets in the cap- 

 ture of the tunny. This fish begins to afford sport at the 

 latter end of May, and its capture is effected by strong walls 

 and chambers of nets fixed in the subterranean waterways. 

 The unsuspecting fish pass from section to section, and find 

 themselves at last in a death chamber from which escape is 

 impossible, and where the fishermen slaughter right and left at 

 leisure. 



Amongst the curiosities of sea angling, and the novelties of 

 such sport, may be mentioned in passing a long-established 

 practice on the Sea of Azoff when it is frozen. This inland sea 

 freezes quickly on account of its shallowness and the brackish 

 nature of most of its water. As navigation is at once stopped 

 by this annual sealing up from the end of November to the 

 end of March, the fishermen are driven to make their livelihood 

 by fishing through the ice. This is done by both nets and 

 lines. An adapted seine is used for the former, and the net is 

 brought into operation by being ingeniously passed along under 

 the ice by means of a number of small holes, twenty feet apart. 

 Valuable hauls of fish are sometimes made by this style. In 

 the open water the fishermen submerge a long line some two 



