APPENDIX, 209 
trees ashore, and corresponding changes in the fishing 
afloat; and I give an account of the present state of 
affairs there more as an example of the completeness 
with which, had there been material, I would gladly have 
treated all the rest. Some mention has already been 
made of Bournemouth in the foregoing pages, but I shall 
recapitulate here most of what has been said before. 
The fishing from the pier may be dismissed in few 
words. It is of four kinds: smelt-fishing with very light 
tackle and a fragment of mussel for bait ; bass-fishing in 
rough August weather with a heavily leaded line pitched 
‘into the surf, the bait being mackerel or fresh herring ; 
the afore-mentioned mackerel-fishing with rod and float ; 
‘and, lastly, the ordinary throw-out fishing for flat-fish, 
chiefly dabs and turbot, and. all lamentably small. 
- During the present summer (1897) I have seen perhaps 
half-a-dozen flat fish, out of several hundreds, that should 
have been retained. Asin all sheltered bays, exceptional 
‘visitors occasionally take the hook here in the warm 
weather, and there have been one or two cases of red 
mullet, small scad and skate; dory, too, are not un- 
common in the latter days of August, and they feed well 
on the launce and sand-smelts that swarm beneath the 
piles from the beginning of June until the end of 
September. Altogether, the pier-fishing is poorer than at 
most places; the bass are in all years few and far 
between, in some absent altogether ; the mackerel only 
hang about the pier during a few of the hottest days in 
August; the smelts are, it is true, as inexhaustible as the 
mussels that cover the piles to high-water mark, but one 
soon tires of catching fish so small; and the flat-fish are, 
as already mentioned, undersized almost without excep- 
tion. 
Nor, it must be confessed, is the fishing from boats 
other than disappointing during nine months of the year. 
From the middle of July, however, until the middle, 
sometimes the end, of October, there are fair quantities 
of fish in the bay; though it is absolutely necessary, 
except when railing or drift-lining for mackerel, which 
travel all over the bay, to pick up the “marks” with great 
care. 
The following will be found the best grounds off 
Bournemouth :— 
P 
