342 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



made some very satisfactory captures of fish ; our average weight, 

 on the generality of occasions, exceeding a hundred pounds. 

 With the hand-line, using slips of fresh herring as bait, our takes 

 consisted of flounders, rock-cod, saithe, podlies, gurnards, and 

 whitings. On one occasion, at a spot where the gurnards were 

 very numerous, I hauled up, in company with one of them, what 

 I recognised to be the gowdie or great weever, a fish that 

 requires some caution in handling, as the spines of the dorsal fin 

 are known to be highly venomous, and wounds inflicted by them 

 are almost instantaneously followed by intense pain. The great 

 weever appears not to be common on that part of the Scottish 

 coast, as, on submitting it to the inspection of some of the Eye- 

 mouth fishermen, they declared their complete ignorance of it. 

 One of the herring-fishers belonging to a Yarmouth boat recog- 

 nised it at once, and gave his testimony as to the dangerous 

 nature of the opercular and dorsal spines. Notwithstanding its 

 offensive weapons, the great weever is held in estimation as food. 

 Its general appearance also commends it to the eye. 



On our trolling lines, using the white-fly with variations, in 

 addition to gurnard and saithe, we caught several mackerel, and 

 numbers of fine lythe, running from three up to six pounds in 

 weight. Also, on one occasion, a herring, and a fine specimen 

 of the gar-fish, or green-bone, another unusual visitor of our 

 Scottish coast. A shot at a solan goose, gull, oyster- catcher, 

 diver, hawk, cormorant, or rock-pigeon, occasionally presented 

 itself, of which my son took advantage, with a fair amount of 

 success. 



My experience in sea-fishing, which I admit bears no propor- 

 tion to my practice on our rivers, has nevertheless been sharp- 

 ened by the latter ; and I feel authorized in consequence to 

 state my belief that the art of taking fish, whether by trolling or 

 hand-line, off our coasts, is as yet very imperfectly understood, 

 and its pleasures, as a sport, very inadequately appreciated. 



