200 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



good tides go by without bait from the ordinary 

 source of supply, three or four enthusiasts sub- 

 scribe ten or twelve shillings, and such induce- 

 ment is sufficient to induce the men to shoot a 

 seine. The men employed by the subscribers then 

 divide the catch and stow it away in their bait- 

 boxes, from which most of it is as often as not 

 purloined the same night by others, who regard 

 simple purchase as a ridiculous manner of acquir- 

 ing property. It is almost to be regretted that 

 the good old times are gone, when a man who 

 stole fishing tackle paid the death penalty, while 

 the punishment for removing fish from the kettle- 

 nets on the Kentish coast was a night in the " tippe 

 house/' followed by several hours next morning 

 in the stocks, during which the whole village, 

 armed with every unsavory missile that devilish 

 ingenuity could devise, made a target of the thief's 

 face. If justice were still done in the land, I 

 know one or two in Devon, who would keep the 

 stocks warm. 



The bass is a fish chiefly of estuaries. Both it 

 and the grey mullet are taken in the beautiful if 

 narrow outlet of the Lyn, which rushes to the 

 Bristol Channel between banks that recall some 

 scene of far-off Switzerland. 



The grey mullet is a fish of very different appe- 

 tite from the bass. In some other habits the two 

 are not dissimilar, for both are of a migratory 



