14 BOTTOM FISHING IN THE NOTTINGHAM STYLE. 



and when touched with a knife, fairly shrieks, and when 

 dying makes moans and sobs disagreeably human." We have 

 nothing, as I have said, like these in England, although in 

 Wales they have a peculiar ".croaking trout," which is found 

 in the Carraclwddy pools, and which when taken utters a sound 

 something like a " croak." 



Some fish are very tenacious of life, such as pike, perch, 

 tench, &c., and will live a long time out of water; indeed, I 

 have had chub that have been six hours out of the water jump 

 from a shelf on to the pantry floor. There are fish in India 

 that will remain some days out of water, during which time 

 they travel overland in search of more suitable lodgings, when 

 their own rivers are " drying up." I have heard that eels in 

 our country will travel overland from one pond or river to 

 another, but though I have been by the river side at all 

 hours, I have not yet met an eel on his journey, nor seen 

 anybody who has. Fish, too, suffer a good deal from 

 parasites, both internally, and externally ; " thorn-headed 

 worms " are very common in the intestines of roach, and 

 tape-worms are found in most fresh-water fish. Specimens 

 of these tape-worms are sometimes found as long as the fish 

 from which they are taken, and barbel are very much troubled 

 with an external parasite. Fish, too, are able to live a long 

 time without food. I have read that a herring, no matter 

 where it is caught, has nothing in its stomach, and gold fish 

 in a globe will live for weeks without any food being given 

 them. Still, however, they do eat, and that most greedily at 

 times, as any one may soon see, who takes the trouble to open 

 some of the fish he catches. 



The digestion of fish is very good and quick, and the 

 gastric juice of the jack is very powerful. Solid food is 

 reduced to a pulp soon after being taken, and I have read 

 that it has been proved by experiment that carp, chub, 

 bream, &c., can digest food given to them in metal tubes. 

 The strength of fish, too, is very great, and writers agree in 

 saying that they are, for their size, the strongest of all verte- 

 brate animals, indeed one of them says that the screw of a 

 modern steamship is but a toy compared with the caudal fin 

 of a barbel, taking them size for size. 



