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doree. 
within the sean with them. From hahits such as these we may 
judge that the Doree is ready to take the hook; but to ensure 
success the bait should either be alive, or made to imitate a 
living fish. A Chad, (the young condition of the Common 
Sea Bream,) hooked at the back, is too tempting a bait to he 
^resisted* 
The Doree is a fertile fish, and the young ones of small 
size are often met with, but they soon become scattered, and 
are not found in such abundance as might be looked for. It 
is not caught in very deep water, but its haunts are in what 
fishermen term rough ground, or in sandy bays where weeds 
abound, where it devours the smaller fishes which resort thither 
for the sake of the pasture. It often seems to float along rather 
than move, and the upright posture is preserved by the action 
of its ventral and pectoral fins, materially assisted also, as may 
be supposed, by the tendrils that overtop the spinous rays of 
the first dorsal fin, and which sometimes are of great length. 
On the authority of fishermen there appears to be also another 
use of these tendrils, not much unlike that of the fishing-line 
of the angler. The Doree is said to retire to rough ground, 
or to make for itself a depression in the sand, and when thus 
half hid these prolongations of the membrane overtopping the 
rays of the dorsal fin are allowed to float about like worms, to 
the temptation of passing fishes, which are thus enticed and 
put off their guard, when, by means of the powerful ventral 
fins, the Doree starts up and seizes its victim. But I have 
been informed also that at times it has taken the horizontal 
posture, and in that position has moved about with an effort 
to take its prey. The smaller fishes will scarcely shew alarm 
at the appearance of this seemingly sluggish enemy, until they 
find themselves engulfed in its ruthless throat. 
This fish is well known to those who highly value the 
luxuries of the table, and usually fetches a comparatively 
considerable price. It was so in the ancient times of Eome, 
on which account Ovid applies to it the word rarus, in reference 
to its value rather than to its scarcity; and Columella names 
the Atlantic Doree among their most generous fishes. It was 
less known as such among ourselves until about the middle of 
the eighteenth century, but whether its coming into greater notice 
at that time arose from the preference shewn it by the well- 
