OCEAN FISH AND OCEA\ 7 FISHING 73 



them are elegant in form, about four feet long, 

 from thirty to forty pounds in weight, and many- 

 coloured ultramarine, blue, red, and silver, with 

 orange-green tails ; dazzling-looking objects as 

 they leap out of the water in pursuit of flying-fish, 

 but in their death-throes the hues rapidly subside 

 into a dull grey. 



They go in schools, and love to escort a ship, 

 playing about her in joyous fashion, darting swiftly 

 to the surface every now and again like beams of 

 light. In Addison's " Metamorphosis of Ovid," 

 book iii., the mariners of Dionysus' vessel are 

 seized with madness, spring into the sea, and are 

 changed into dolphins. 



11 Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey ; 

 A shoal of nineteen dolphins round her play." 



The old-fashioned way of catching them is from 

 the jib-boom end, by a kind of rough fly-fishing, 

 but the easier, and by far and away the most 

 exciting, method is with a spoon or other artificial 

 bait from the stern. 



The fisherman who chooses to adopt the former 

 method secures himself with a lashing to the 

 extremity of the slender, tapering spar called the 

 jib-boom, a perilously conspicuous position, whence 

 the great ship can be seen, as it were, advancing 



