116 SEA FISH; 



lines, eating off the bait, getting hooked, and causing 

 endless trouble and vexation ; whilst the former, like 

 an insane tailor "running amuck" with his shears, 

 nips off the lines, for the mere fun of the thing, and 

 cuts the fish as easily out of the net by one snap, as a 

 fashionable milliner cuts a hole in a lace cap. 



Then there are members of the family to which the 

 turbot belongs, viz., the halibut, brill, and sole, the 

 torsk, ling, and some others of the family Gadidse ; 

 with the thornback, the various skates, and others of 

 the family Raiidae. 



The stingray, or trigon, a gentleman with a barbed 

 spike in his tail like a Sandwich Islander's spear, and 

 the electric ray, or cramp fish, are all taken by trawls 

 and bolters, as well as by other plans. The latter fish 

 has the power and, according to Humboldt, the will to 

 communicate electric shocks to surrounding objects. 

 This peculiarity appears to have been known to 

 physicians of very early ages, and it is not to be 

 wondered at that Pliny and others should have 

 greatly exaggerated its attributes. Like the gym- 

 notus, or electric eel of tropical America, its electric 

 power is no doubt highly important in procuring and 

 rendering its prey insensible, and more readily digested. 

 Representatives of the family Esocidaa there are, in- 

 cluding the garfish or gorebill (most truly "a long- 

 nibbed thing"), valuable as a bait; and the bright, 

 glancing, silvery flying-fish, so abundant in the tropical 

 seas, and well worthy of notice by the voyager. 



