THE LING AND TURBOT. 243 



line a little longer ; but with this simple apparatus they kill 

 vast numbers. The whole harbor is covered with boats. 



Other members of the cod family are caught much in the 

 same manner as their representative, and are very valuable 

 as food, especially the Ling. The sounds (air-bladders), are 

 pickled, and the roes are preserved in brine, and eaten as 

 food, or used as a means of attracting fish by throwing it 

 about the nets, as is often done by French fishermen. The 

 Common Hake, a fish sometimes measuring three feet, is also 

 plentiful on the English and Irish coasts, and very voracious. 

 When enclosed in a net with pilchards — as frequently hap- 

 pens on the Cornish coast — it gorges itself with them : It 

 is to this species, and the common cod when dried and salted 

 for exportation, to which the name of " stock " fish is usually 

 applied. Forty thousand hakes have been landed on the 

 shores of Mount's Bay in Cornwall in a single day, and the 

 quantity captured on the Irish coast is immense. Galway 

 Bay is sometimes called the "Bay of Hakes" from the numbers 

 of that fish taken. 



The Turbot, an especial delight of fish epicures in all 

 times, is taken, with other flat fish, by lines and hooks, the 

 fishermen going out in parties of three to a " coble," each 

 man carrying his long line, the united ends of which are a 

 league in length, and draw after them fifteen hundred baited 

 hooks; these lines, as they are to lie across the current, can 

 only be shot twice in twenty -four hours, when the rush of the 

 water slackens as the tide is about to change. The Italians 

 christen the turbot the "sea pheasant," from its flavor. The 

 Romans were particularly fond of this dainty, and frequent 

 allusion to its size occur in their writers; thus : 



*' Great turbots and late suppers lead 

 To debt, disgrace, and abject need.** 



•* Tbe border of broadest dish 



Lay hid beneath the monster fish." 



