A DATS GROUND-FISHING. 109 



incision, an inch from the head, and twisting one of the sides 

 of the bait round, so placed it on the point of the hook that 

 the outside was turned inside, and the inside would be first 

 offered to the fish. Provincial names are generally an effectual 

 disguise, and as my readers may probably be puzzled to know 

 what fish is meant by this appellation, I had better perhaps 

 inform them that it is nothing more nor less than the Power or 

 Poor-Cod (Morrhua minuta), so frequent round our coasts, and 

 known as the King-fish in Scotland (p. 101). This freshly-cut 

 bait, although not in reality as rich as Pilchard, evidently 

 possessed an irresistible attraction for our slippery friend, as he 

 seized it without his previous caution, and that * music on the 

 water ' which the fisherman loves to hear, technically termed 

 ' sawing timber ' (as the tightened line cuts into the gunwale), 

 told an unmistakable tale of weight below. 



The water being only twelve fathoms deep, the fish was 

 soon alongside ; one splash, a struggle, and taking the snood 

 short in his hand, Rogers lifted him into the boat, and only 

 just in time, for he had scarcely so done when the hook lost its 

 hold, and the fish fell safely into the bottom of the boat, 

 apparently uninjured, lashing its tail rapidly to and fro, and 

 taking entire charge of that part of the boat in which I was 

 stationed between the two after thwarts. There he lay, lead- 

 coloured in hue, 'rather pale about the gills, and certainly 

 doosed fishy about the eyes,' staring as the whole fraternity of 

 Congers has been remarked to stare from time immemorial 

 whose fixity of gaze has thence passed into a proverb some- 

 times remaining quiet and apparently at ease, then again gliding 

 slowly over the bottom of the boat in changing S-curves, and 

 threatening to invade the sanctum sanctorum of the stern-sheets 

 with his unwelcome presence. 



Although he took such a deal of catching, he was not very 

 large after all, but a well-conditioned brute about 14 Ibs. or 

 15 Ibs., and 'worth eighteenpence,' the fisherman observed, 

 contemplating his slimyship with an eye to business, for we had 

 so much other fish in the boat that we did not regard the 

 Conger except in the light of an accession to our catch, from 

 which, having selected what we feel inclined, we leave the rest 



