CHAPTEE IX. 



Long-Line Fishing— Scarcity of Fish— Their Fecundity— Large Specimen of the Rata 

 Chagritua—Tat Wolf-Fish— The Devil-Fish. 



For several years past [March 1870] tlie spring fishing with 

 " long lines " in our western lochs has been so unsuccessful as to 

 be hardly worth the while engaging in it. At our very doors, 

 where with the hand-line during the summer and autumn months, 

 some ten or twelve years ago, we could almost always depend on a 

 large basketful of the finest rock cod, gurnard, haddock, and 

 flounder, as the result of a couple of hours fishing, more recently 

 very few, and sometimes none at all, could be caught, with the 

 cunningest exercise of all the patience and piscatorial skUl at our 

 command, while in winter and spring the long-line fishing of grey 

 cod, skate, and ling, and eel has been equally disappointing. Why 

 it should be so no one would venture to say ; the utmost you could 

 get out of the oldest fisherman on the coast was an admission of 

 the fact, with a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulders, 

 that if so disposed you could very readily interpret into the line, 

 albeit unknown to him, that — 



" Twas true 'twas pity, pity 'twas 'twas true," 



a cautious reticence on the point that was altogether praiseworthy, 

 for really and truly nobody did know or could say anything 

 satisfactory in explanation of the mystery. Was it owing to the 

 multiplication of the number of steamers, screw and paddle, con- 

 stantly coming and going, and like Tennyson's " years " at their 

 unamiable meeting, " roaring and blowing," keeping the waters in 



