NATURAL HISTORY. 33 
that a porbeagle of little over 4 feet will turn the 
beam at 50 lbs: When hooked, this shark shows 
less fight than the blue, but I have always found 
it perform the usual shark tactics of swimming to 
the surface and slacking the line, In colour, it is 
between a green and grey along the back and sides, 
lighter on the belly. 
This species, too well known to need either 
figure or description, ¢#e fish of pier- and pout or 
boat-fishing alike, prefers the rocks, over pouting 
which indecd it is imperative to bring up for really 
good pout-fishing, but is also taken from piers some 
distance from any reef. It has the beard of the 
cod family, to which it belongs, and its deep body 
is marked with vertical bands. Few of our fish 
take the hook at so early a stage, with the result 
that, although the pout grows to a length of a foot, 
and I have hooked many between the Foreland 
and the Land’s End weighing close on 3 lbs., it 
is much more familiar at a length of 3 or 4 inches 
and a weight of as many ounces. The pout is 
particularly fond of frequenting the neighbourhood 
of wrecks, which furnish shelter to successive 
generations of the fish and sport to successive 
generations of those who catch them. It is known 
in Cornwall as “bib,” and is almost invariably 
found there in the company of small “ power-cods.” 
In that favourite crustacean, the prawn, we have 
a sea-bait that has not up to the present 
attracted all the notice that it merits, which 
may in part be due to the somewhat high price of 
these animals. In the live prawn, however, there 
is, for those who do not mind the expense of buying 
D 
Prawn 
