CH. VIII.] SPEARING FLAT-FISH OFF RYDE. 109 
T used, when a boy, to have very good oppor- 
tunities of observing this expedient of theirs to 
escape detection; it being one of my favourite 
amusements, when the tide served —low-water 
spring-tide was the best time—to start very early 
in the morning, accompanied by the garden-boy, 
each of us provided with a two-pronged steel fork, 
elaborately sharpened, and a basket, to the sands 
near Ryde, where in the pools left by the sea we 
used to find and spear (or rather fork) a good 
many stragglers, with now and then an Eel, who 
had also forgotten himself, and been left behind 
by the tide. The Flat-fish we were obliged to 
approach with care, stalk them, as it were; but 
when an Eel was started, we had to “chevy” him 
to his harbour amongst the stones, where with 
care in due time we generally managed to fork 
him. Our best morning’s work, if I remember 
right, consisted of seventy-five Flat-fish, and six 
Eels, besides a lot of Cockles, with which, as we 
outstayed breakfast-time, we did not disdain to 
amuse ourselves on the road homewards, they 
being not at all unpalatable to a hungry boy, and 
easily opened, an office which one shell kindly per- 
forms for another by the following very simple 
process :—Two of them are placed dos & dos with 
