OF FISH. 
275 
pounds. They live at the bottom of the sea, feeding on 
little crabs, and worms, and young fry, particularly of 
spats and herrings; which therefore are the usual baits. 
They are caught usually with a ground-line, sixty-four 
fathoms long, with from a hundred to two hundred 
hooks. One vessel throws out about twenty of these 
lines, armed with four thousand hooks, and they need 
only lie about two or three hours. The greatest fishery 
for whitings is carried on in France from December to 
February; but in England and Holland in the spring. 
They appear in such quantities on the English coasts, 
as to form shoals of three miles long and a mile and a 
half wide; and, as they are caught in too great numbers 
to be eaten fresh, they salt them, by which however they 
lose the delicacy of their taste, and are then called buck- 
thorn; they are often used in this state as ships 5 stores. 
As they pursue the herrings, they are often taken in the 
same nets; and are in greatest perfection at this time, 
because they are fattened by feeding on the young her- 
rings. In October the roes and ovaries begin to swell; 
and they continue spawning from the end of December 
till the beginning of February; and about that time they 
become soft, lean, and insipid to the taste. They are 
pursued by all the rapacious tribes that inhabit the sea; 
yet they multiply fast. 
Pike. (Esqx. PI. 48.) The head of the pike is very 
flat, the eyes small and of a gold tinge; the upper 
jaw broad and shorter than the lower which turns up 
a little at the end, and is marked with minute punc- 
tures; the teeth are very sharp, disposed not only in 
the point of the upper jaw, but in both sides of the 
lower, in the rooi of the mouth, and has often three 
rows upon the tongue, and even down to the orifice 
of the stomach; the gape of the jaws is wide, although 
clo sely connected; they have on each side an addi- 
tional bone like the jaw of a viper, which renders 
them capable of greater distention when the prey is swal- 
lowed; the body is long, the back broad and almost 
square when in its best state; the belly is always white. 
When in high season their colours are very fine, being 
