OCEAN FISH AND OCEAN FISHING 73 



them — are elegant in form, about four feet long, 

 from thirty to forty pounds in weight, and many- 

 coloured — ultramarine, blue, red, and silver, with 

 orange-green tails ; dazzling-looking objects as 

 they leap out of the water in pursuit of flying-fish, 

 but in their death-throes the hues rapidly subside 

 into a dull grey. 



They go in schools, and love to escort a ship, 

 playing about her in joyous fashion, darting swiftly 

 to the surface every now and again like beams of 

 light. In Addison's " Metamorphosis of Ovid,'' 

 book iii., the mariners of Dionysus' vessel are 

 seized with madness, spring into the sea, and are 

 changed into dolphins. 



" Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey ; 

 A shoal of nineteen dolphins round her play." 



The old-fashioned way of catching them is from 

 the jib-boom end, by a kind of rough fly-fishing, 

 but the easier, and by far and away the most 

 exciting, method is with a spoon or other artificial 

 bait from the stern. 



The fisherman who chooses to adopt the former 

 method secures himself with a lashing to the 

 extremity of the slender, tapering spar called the 

 jib-boom, a perilously conspicuous position, whence 

 the great ship can be seen, as it were, advancing 



