Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/250

Rh kind of bag-net, the frame of which is in the form of a bow of four feet diameter, the place of the chord being occupied by a stout piece of wood, from the centre of which passes a staff eight feet long, crossing the bow, to whose middle it is fastened. The net is a bag fixed to the bow and chord. It is used in this manner The fisherman dipping it beneath the hanging weeds, raises it to the surface, shaking it, and as it were raking the weeds with its chord; his comrade slowly pushing the boat meanwhile along the quay. After two or three dips he examines his success, picks out the prawns and shrimps, and deposits them in a bag at his waist, and throws out contemptuously all "rubbish."

It is this "rubbish," however, which to any one but the prawn-catcher constitutes the main game. Many interesting little creatures have I got in this way. Among the fishes this Pogge has occurred two or three times; chiefly small specimens not more than two inches, or three, in length, but one among them had attained the length of five inches, nearly the full dimensions of the species. The small ones were black, but the larger a dull dirty grey. The most marked peculiarity of this little fish is its armature; it is clothed, like a knight of the age of chivalry, in a suit of plate-mail, cap-a-pie. Every one of the bony-plates of which its lorica is composed is furnished with an elevated central keel; and as the plates run in regular longitudinal series, the surface of the body is armed with eight elevated sharp ridges running from head to tail. The huge head bristles with spines and bony points, and the nose terminates in a couple of spines