Space will not permit of more than a passing notice to the flat‐fish, or _Pleuronectidæ_. These fish swim by means of a caudal fin, and they can ascend or descend in the water readily, but they cannot turn to right or left with the same facility as other fish. Most flat‐fish, soles, turbot, flounders, and plaice, are taken by trawl nets. Some of the larger are speared. The holibut (or halibut) is a fish which attains a great size, sometimes as much as seven feet in length, and weighing 300 pounds. One brought to Edinburgh measured seven‐and‐a‐half feet in length by three feet in breadth; it weighed 320 pounds. In Norway and Greenland a long cord, from which branch thirty or so smaller cords, each furnished with a barbed hook, is employed for their capture. The main cord is attached to floating planks, which indicate the place where it is let down. The _Gadidæ_ family includes some most important fish, commercially considered, such as the whiting, haddock, and cod, the general form and peculiarities of which are familiar to all. The cod fish is a most voracious feeder, and is provided with a vast stomach; it eats molluscs, crabs, and small fish, and has been known even to swallow pieces of wood. It is essentially a sea fish, and is never seen in rivers. From the days of John Cabot, the English, French, Dutch, and Americans have prosecuted the great fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland; 2,000 English vessels, manned by 32,000 seamen, are employed in the pursuit. The modern cod‐smack is clipper‐built, has large tank wells for carrying the fish alive, and costs about £1,500. The fish is taken in nets, or by line. Bertram tells us that each man has a line of fifty fathoms in length, and attached to this are a hundred hooks, baited with mussels, pieces of herring, or whiting. “On arriving at the fishing ground, the fishermen heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff about six feet in height attached to it. The buoy is kept stationary by a line, called the ‘pow end,’ reaching to the bottom of the water, where it is held by a stone or grapnel fastened to the lower end. To the ‘pow end’ is also fastened the fishing‐line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat sails, which may be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be unfavourable for the direction in which the crew wish to set the line, they use the oars. When the line, or ‘taes,’ is all out, the end is dropped, and the boat returns to the buoy. The ‘pow’ line is hauled up with the anchor and fishing‐line attached to it. The fishermen then haul in the line, with the fish attached to it. Eight hundred fish might be, and often have been, taken by eight men in a few hours by this operation; but many fishermen say now that they consider themselves fortunate when they get a fish on every fifth hook on an eight‐lined ‘taes’ line.” On our own coasts the cod is principally taken by deep‐sea lines, with many shorter lines depending from them armed with large hooks. One man has in