NATURAL HISTORY. 23 
by those who have any fancy for so sordid a game; 
and I have seen hundreds hooked off the eastmost 
breakwater at Hastings,—eels that had descended 
the little river at Rye, and worked westward along 
the rocky gullies that fringe that portion of the 
Sussex foreshore. 
In the flounder, too, we have a fish that, in the 
light of modern angling perhaps, belongs 
more strictly to the fresh-water fish, but it 
is mentioned here for the sake of giving the points 
in which it differs from the other flat-fish taken in 
salt water,—the presence of rough tubercles along 
the base of the fin-rays. It is occasionally taken 
with tumours on the back, which, according to 
Cunningham, the fishermen believe to be its eggs. 
It breeds in salt water only. Mr. Wheeley gave 
some useful hints on catching flounders in the 
preceding volume of the Angler's Library. 
Flounder 
In the “greenbone,” as it is often called from 
the colour of its bones, we have a type in 
many respects unique among our fish, with 
its snipe-like bill, and the hardest roof to its mouth 
that ever living creature had. The singular habit 
of this fish, leaping to the surface when hooked, 
and endeavouring in such manner to shake out 
the hook, has been alluded to above. The angler 
who has the fortune to hook a garfish on his 
mackerel-gear, the most frequent way of taking 
them, will further notice that it has an unmis- 
takable and not wholly pleasant smell. In spite 
of which, however, as well as of the colour of 
its bones that has prejudiced so many against it, 
the garfish is better eating than most fish caught 
Garfish 
