The thing is not, however, utterly hopeless. Occasionally Mr. Gosse had a tub of “rubbish” brought to him; but much more generally worthless than otherwise. The boys are sometimes more open to advances than the men, especially if the master carries his own son with him, in which case the lad has a little more opportunity to turn a penny for himself than when he is friendless. “If ever,” says Gosse, “you should be disposed to try your hand on a bucket of trawler’s ‘rubbish,’ I strongly recommend you, in the preliminary point of ‘catching your hare,’ to begin with the cabin‐boy. “The last basketful I overhauled made an immense heap when turned out upon a board, but was sadly disappointing upon examination. It consisted almost entirely of one or two kinds of hydroid zoophytes, and these of the commonest description. It does not follow hence, however, that an intelligent and sharp‐eyed person would not have succeeded in obtaining a far greater variety; a score of species were doubtless brushed overboard when this trash was bundled into the basket; but being small, or requiring to be picked out singly, they were neglected, whereas the long and tangled threads of the _Plumularia falcata_ could be caught up in a moment like an armful of pea‐haulm in a field, its value being estimated, as usual with the uninitiated, by quantity rather than by quality, by bulk rather than variety.” [Illustration: THE WEEVER FISH. (_Trachinus communis._)] Mr. Gosse found on several occasions when examining the contents of shrimpers’ nets, a pretty little flat‐fish, a constant inhabitant of sandy beaches and pools, and often found in company with shrimps, some of which it hardly exceeded in size, although sometimes reaching a maximum growth of four or five inches. Small as it is, it is allied to the magnificent turbot. The naturalist above mentioned took it home, and observed its habits at leisure. “In a white saucer,” says he, “it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse.” This is the Top‐knot, so called from an elongation of the dorsal fin. The little Sand Launce, with its pearly lustrous sides, is a commonly‐found fish on the shore. It has a remarkable projection of the lower jaws, a kind of spade, as it were, by the aid of which it manages to scoop out a bed in the wet sand, and so lie hidden. The Lesser Weever, called by English fishermen Sting‐bull, Sting‐fish, and Sea‐cat, because of its power of inflicting severe inflammatory wounds, a little fish of four or five inches long, is another denizen of the sands. So also the young of the Skate. The Wrasse, the Globy, the Blenny, and many other small fish,