SPEARING FLOUNDERS. 253 



have often leaned idly over the side of my little 

 ilat-bottoraed boat, a man with the oars simply 

 to stop or steady her, and let her float with the 

 almost slack tide over the mud, while I kept a look 

 out for the face or else for the slight delineation 

 beneath the surface of the mud of a flounder's form. 

 A steady, quick stab pierces the back of the fish, and 

 a peculiar turn of the wrist to bring the fish up edge- 

 ways, and prevent the broad surface he would other- 

 ways offer to the water forcing him ofl" the barb, and 

 he is safe in the bottom of the boat. Many a dish of 

 fish I have caught this way, in as idle a manner as 

 the most lazy pleasure-seeker could desire. A good 

 deal of occupation that harbour has afi"orded me in 

 company with the Avild-fowl shooter, — and, reader, 

 must I say it ? — contrabandist, Hooper, as my man, 

 now head keeper over the game at Canford. Before 

 I knew the harbour, its tides, and peculiarities, I 

 was obliged to have at my command an experienced 

 hand, and a better-mannered or more sensible wild- 

 fowl shooter or seaman than Hooper never stepped 

 on board a boat. The shooting given me by Sir 

 George Gervis, and the rabbit-warren it contained, 

 on Hengistbury or Christchurch Head (his land 

 forming one side of the harbour), always made it 

 worth my while to be there or thereabouts, so that 

 any adjunct to the day's amusement was kept in 

 sif^ht. There are little ditches intersecting the low 

 land, up which the tide flows, and then leaves almost 

 dry ; these are the resort of small but innumerable 

 shrimps, very nearly or about half as large as those 

 obtained in the Severn. These ditches are too small 

 for the use of the common shrimping net, and the 

 mud in them is too deep ; but I invented a way of 



