1 64 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



The cunner is not very large. He rarely tips the 

 scales at a pound, but he will eat his own weight 

 in bait in a day and he is numerous and pretty 

 nearly omnipresent. 



Wherever the salt tides flow, whether it be 

 up the sandy stretches of a clean bottomed cove, 

 along the mud bottom of the creek, or amid the 

 red-brown tangle of kelp on some ledge awash a 

 mile off shore, there comes the cunner, suiting his 

 color chameleon-like to that of the bottom. 



On the mud he is brown, on the sand gray, 

 but if you wish to see handsome creatures you 

 must pull them from some bottom where the red 

 kelp grows. Then their rich bronzy reds will 

 make you forget their bait thievery and love them 

 for their beauty. 



If you will go back to Dombey and Son and 

 read the description of Mr. Carker you will re- 

 alize that Dickens must have been fishing off the 

 ledges of some English headland when he 

 planned that gentleman and his characteristics. 

 In whatever mood or from whatever side Mr. 

 Carker approaches you it is his teeth which dom- 

 inate the situation. I am convinced that every 

 time Dickens tried to make him otherwise he 

 found another cunner tugging and drew him up. 



I 



