CHAPTER XIII 



FISHING ''down outside" 



In the beginning of things were the cunners, 

 known along Massachusetts Bay mainly as perch. 

 Names are good only in certain localities. If 

 you ask a Hingham boy how the cunners are bit- 

 ing he will be likely to throw rounded beach 

 stones at you, thinking he is being made game of. 

 Down at Newport, R. I., they catch cunners and 

 if you talk salt-water perch to them it is at your 

 peril. Elsewhere they are chogsett, or perad- 

 venture burgall, but everywhere they are nippers 

 and baitstealers, and the trait which makes these 

 names universal is the reason why in the begin- 

 ning of things were the cunners. For the first 

 bait of the first fisherman that ever threw hook 

 into the North Atlantic was taken by a cunner. 

 There are today forty million, more or less, 

 North Atlantic fishermen who will corroborate 

 this testimony with personal experience. It may 

 be that the first hook was taken by some other 



fish, but the cunner got in ahead on the bait. 



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