130 FISHER-DOG OUT SEA-FISHING. [PART I. 
ing effort was made, and the fish landed safely on 
terra firma. He was then a proud and a happy 
dog. He had done his work well in his own 
opinion, and evidently considered himself to be 
off duty for a time, and entitled, in common with 
ourselves, to take a rest and divert himself, which, 
after inspecting the fish, and superintending the 
process of weighing it, he accordingly set about 
doing in his own way, that is, instead of smoking 
a pipe over it as we did, he, after a preliminary 
stretch and roll on the heather, took out his relax- 
ation in a hunt (not however often attended with 
much success) after field-mice. 
Of sea-fishing too he was very fond, and, when 
hand-lines were employed, would look over the 
side as a line was hauled in, and await the appear- 
ance of the up-coming fish with the keenest inter- 
est. The method I have elsewhere described of 
trailing with a number of flies on the same line he 
never seemed thoroughly to understand, appar- 
ently considering that one, or at the most two, fish 
at a time was as much as could possibly be ex- 
pected, and when a string of about a dozen came 
in one after the other, he got into a state of per- 
fectly bewildered excitement. 
But what he peculiarly delighted in was fishing 
