174 FISHING GOSSIP. 
ment of the fins of the wels are entirely in accordance 
with its mode of life; being a bottom-fish it does not 
require a development of those fins by which the body 
is balanced and kept suspended in the water ; there- 
fore pectorals, ventrals, and dorsal are small. The 
only motion necessary for its subsistence is to dart 
after the fish which approach it ; to enable it to do 
this with rapidity, either forwards or sideways, its 
long flexible tail is admirably adapted, the anal fin 
increasing the surface of the organ, and rendering the 
stroke more powerful. For the same purpose the 
pike has the dorsal and anal fins a, far backwards 
close to the caudal. 
All the upper parts and the fins are ore black, 
passing into blackish-green on the sides; the lower 
parts whitish, marbled with black. 
The wels is the largest species of fresh-water fish 
in Europe, the sturgeons belonging as much to the 
marine as to the fresh-water fauna ; specimens from 
4 to 5 feet long, and from 50 to 80 lbs. in weight, are 
of common occurrence, and single individuals of 4 or 
5 ewt. are caught almost every year; their increase | 
with age is proportionately much more in girth than 
in length, and they sometimes attain such a size in 
the body as to exceed the compass of a man’s arms. 
The wels is very sedentary in its habits, lying in a 
hole or behind some projecting object during the day, 
and moving slowly about in the night, but never to a 
