120 



DOREE. 



within the scan with them. From habits such as these we may 

 judge that the Doree is ready to take the hook; but to ensure 

 success the bait should either be alive, or made to imitate a 

 living fish. A Chad, (the young condition of the Common 

 Sea Bream,) hooked at the back, is too tempting a bait to be 

 resisted. 



The Doree is a fertile fish, and the young ones of small 

 size are often met with, but they soon become scattered, and 

 arc not found in such abundance as might be looked for. It 

 is not caught in very deep Avater, but its haunts are in what 

 fishermen term rough ground, or in sandy bays where weeds 

 abound, where it devours the smaller fishes which resort thither 

 for the sake of the pasture. It often seems to float along rather 

 than move, and the upright posture is preserved by the action 

 of its ventral and pectoral fins, materially assisted also, as may 

 be supposed, by the tendrils that overtop the spinous rays of 

 the first dorsal fin, and which sometimes are of great length. 

 On the authority of fishermen there appears to be also another 

 use of these tendrils, not much unlike that of the fishing-line 

 of the angler. The Doree is said to retire to rough ground, 

 or to make for itself a depression in the sand, and when thus 

 half hid these prolongations of the membrane overtopping the 

 rays of the dorsal fin are allowed to float about like worms, to 

 the temptation of passing fishes, which are thus enticed and 

 put oft" their guard, when, by means of the powerful ventral 

 fins, the Doree starts up and seizes its victim. But I have 

 been informed also that at times it has taken the horizontal 

 posture, and in that position has moved about with an eflbrt 

 to take its prey. The smaller fishes will scarcely shew alarm 

 at the appearance of this seemingly sluggish enemy, until they 

 find themselves engulfed in its ruthless throat. 



This fish is well known to those who highly value the 

 luxuries of the table, and usually fetches a comparatively 

 considerable price. It was so in the ancient times of Rome, 

 on which account Ovid applies to it the word rarus, in reference 

 to its value rather than to its scarcity; and Columella names 

 the Atlantic Doree among their most generous fishes. It was 

 less known as such among ourselves until about the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, but whether its coming into greater notice 

 at that time arose from the preference shewn it by the well- 



