GREA T BRITAIN. 1 25 



on submerged banks, where it can obtain appropriate food. 

 Being a voracious feeder, the experienced fisherman takes 

 advantage of its appetite, and with long or hand-lines, as 

 well as nets, seeks his game in suitable localities. Long- 

 lines or butters are employed up to at least seven miles in 

 length, while the Norwegians also use trawl-lines and even 

 nets. The baits employed are various : small fish, as 

 lamperns (Petromyzon fluviatilis\ sand-launce (A mmodytes), 

 herrings (Clupea harengus}, pilchards (C.pilchardus)> sprats 

 (C. sprattus}, whelks, or buckies as they are termed in 

 Scotland, where they are much approved of, due both to 

 their toughness and likewise attractiveness to the cod and 

 ling, limpets, mussels, various Crustacea, and testacea, as 

 well as lug-worms, and even the roe of the cod itself. 

 These lines, if slightly raised off the ground by floats, or 

 buoyed at both ends, so that merely the middle portion 

 rests on the ground, cause the bait to be less hidden by 

 weeds, are better seen by the fish, and less consumed by 

 crabs and star-fishes. The long-lines off our coasts are shot 

 about slack water, and heaved up in about six hours, when 

 the tide has nearly finished. Sharks, dog-fishes, and por- 

 poises are great enemies to this occupation, carrying away 

 the hooked fish. Hand-lining is used very similarly to 

 long-lining, only employed by men fishing from boats, 

 while it is most efficacious when cod are not at the bottom, 

 but rising more towards the surface, as when in pursuit of 

 the herring or other fishes. Whiffing^ or surface line- 

 fishing, and beam-trawling^ are likewise employed for taking 

 some members of the cod family. 



The fish having been captured, the question for the 

 fishermen is, if they shall be killed at once and prepared 

 in a suitable manner by means of ice or salt for a near or 

 distant market ; or whether they shall be retained alive by 





