38 SEA-FISH. 
sport with a light rod and fine tackle. This fish is 
replaced, however, on our south coast by the so- 
called “sand-smelt,” really the atherine, a small 
silvery fish lacking the adipose fin of the other. 
The atherine, which affects sandy bays, is caught in 
thousands every summer from Bournemouth pier. 
This summer (1897) the atherines came inshore 
early, so that the first were observed on the same 
day as the first swifts overhead; but for some 
reason or other, probably the cold, they disap- 
peared again for nearly a month, after which the 
supply was inexhaustible throughout the summer. 
Besides giving some sport for their size and being 
excellent on the table, these fish are among the 
best baits for turbot and other ground-fish. 
The amateur is not likely, unless he do a deal of 
night-fishing, to catch many soles ; but if minded to 
attempt their capture, he should bear in 
mind that they feed in the mud, and that 
the mouth is exceedingly small, the sole sucking in 
all manner of soft food. A lug-worm is as good a 
bait as any. The so-called “lemon sole” is more 
properly speaking a dab, in shape resembling the 
plaice group, to which it belongs. It is commonly 
caught, along with plaice and sand-dabs, from our 
south-coast piers in the autumn months. 
Sole 
This remarkable “ shell-fish,” pipe-shaped, as its 
name denotes, burrows in the wet sand just above 
Solen low-water mark, and, although my opinion 
of it as bait is not high, it is so interesting on 
1 The sand-smelis do not as a rule enter the mouth of the Arum 
at Littlehampton before the end of August or beginning of 
September, 
