196 SEA-FISH. 
springiness of rod is as a rule sufficient to hook the 
fish alone. 
When fairly hooked, these little fish should be 
hauled into the boat without slacking the line for 
a moment, as they are somewhat clever at getting 
off the hook. They present no difficulties in the 
way of spines, and may be handled with impunity, 
the worst that can be said of them being that they 
are slimy and given to-shedding their bronze- 
tinted scales. Two distinct races will be noted ; 
one with, the other without, black bars on the 
sides—a difference due, I fancy, to surroundings. 
Few fish are quicker to unbait the hooks, and if 
there is a lull after two or three bites, the line 
should be hauled, when the hooks will generally be 
found to be without bait. It is not necessary to 
cover the hook, so long as the bait has a fair chance 
of keeping on. 
The whiting proper, otherwise silver whiting, is 
Whiting” more elegant and tapering fish than the 
last-named, which has in many districts 
usurped its name. Unlike the pouting, the present 
species is taken on the sand, particularly on hard 
sand flats in the tideway, for the whiting does not, 
as mentioned above, mind a little tide. 
As in most forms of angling in salt water, there 
is whiting-fishing and whiting-fishing. There is 
the modest pursuit of small whiting in a few feet 
of water—I recollect seeing an unpatriotic Hamp- 
shireman on board the same boat as myself at the 
Naval Review hauling up numerous small whiting 
the whole time the royal yacht was passing through 
the smoke of the big guns—and there is the 
heavier, more enjoyable work out in the offing, 
where the water is over 100 feet deep, the leads a 
