82 NETHER LOCHABER. 



encased in fur, feather, or scales. It was the gar-fish of British 

 zoologists, known in ichthyological nomenclature as the Belone 

 vulgaris of the family Scomberesocidm, having the hody, which is 

 covered with minute scales, elongated to a degree almost conger- 

 like. It is frequently captured on the east coast, sometimes 

 intermingling with mackerel and haddock shoals in considerahle 

 numbers. We have seen it in the Perth, Dundee, and EdLaburgh 

 fish markets; never, as we have said, on the west coast. It 

 is said to be excellent eating when in proper season, although there 

 is a prejudice against its use amongst the fishermen themselves ; 

 and it is a remarkable fact, by the way, that some of the finest fish 

 in the sea — most in esteem, at all events, with the fish-eating public 

 • — are frequently rejected by their professional captors for their own 

 eating in favour of what we should call the coarser and inferior 

 kinds. For a long time we thought this was entirely a matter of 

 economy, those that brought the largest price in the market being 

 sold, and the inferior sorts kept for their own consumption. Sub- 

 sequently we had abundant opportunities of finding out that it was 

 far otherwise. An east coast fisherman will give the preference at 

 any time, for his own eating that is, to a flounder, however flabby 

 and flaccid, over a whiting or plaice ; he will eat the hake rather 

 than the finest cod or haddock, and considers the wiQg of a skate, 

 dried in the smoke until it is of the colour of the darkest mahogany, 

 with a bouquet the very opposite, be sure, of the ottar of roses, a 

 tit-bit with which, in his estimation, neither sea-trout, mackerel, 

 nor turbot can for a moment bear comparison. Fishermen, too, we 

 have observed wilh some surprise, seldom eat then- fish fresh ; they 

 prefer it salted — salted, moreover, as a rule to a degree that to other 

 people would render it almost uneatable. For the prejudice against 

 the gar-fish there is, however, some excuse. In popular supersti- 

 tion, " lang-nebhed " things have always been in bad odour ; and 

 the gar-fish's snout is greatly elongated, so much so that it bears 



