.

"I've got a net ready for you," said Will, drawing a strong landing-net
from under a piece of sail and handing it to Dick, who was soon after
busily at work dashing it in and capturing the lovely arrowy fish in
ones and twos and threes. Once he caught five at once, and drew them
inboard for his father to admire the brilliancy of the colours upon the
live fish, and the lovely purple ripple marks that died away on the
sides in a sheen of pink and silver and gold.

Now and then other fish were netted, but fish that had been surrounded
with the mackerel. Several times over little stumpy red mullet were
seen--brilliant little fish, and then grey mullet--large-scaled silvery
fish with tiny mouths and something the aspect, on a large scale, of a
river dace.

The fishermen found time to good-naturedly call Josh when any particular
prize of this kind was found, and the Temples had not been there long
before, flapping, gasping, and staring, a very monster of ugliness was
taken out in a landing-net, along with a score of mackerel.

This flat-sided, great-eyed, big-headed creature, with a huge back fin,
and general ugliness painted in it everywhere, had a dark mark on either
side of the body; and though arrayed and burnished here and there with
metallic colours, the fish was so grotesque that its beauties were quite
ignored.

"Ah! our friend John-Dory--Jean Dore, as the French call him--gilded
John," said Mr Temple. "A delicacy, but not a handsome fish. Look at
the thumb and finger marks upon his side."

"Oh! but those are not finger marks," cried Dick.

"No," said his father, "but they are quite near enough in appearance to
make people say that this is the fish Peter caught, and held between his
finger and thumb while he opened its mouth."

"Here y'are, sir!" shouted a fisherman. "Young gents like to see this?"

Josh rowed the boat alongside and Dick held his net, while the fisherman
laughingly turned into it from his own a great jelly-fish, as clear as
crystal and glistening in the sun with iridescent colours of the
loveliest hue.

"Oh, what a beauty!" cried Dick. "Look, father, look!"

"Yes; keep it in the water, you will see it to the best advantage
there."

Dick doused the jelly-fish down into the sun-lit waters, and then they
could see its wonderful nature.

In size it was as big as a skittle-ball or a flat Dutch cheese, though a
better idea of its shape may be obtained by comparing it to a
half-open