[HOW THE CHILDREN CAUGHT SOME QUEER FISH.]
BY ALLAN FORMAN.
"Oh, Uncle Harry, I've got another dog-fish!" shouted Charley Newton, as he pulled in a small specimen of the genus Squalidæ.
"Keep on," laughed his uncle. "We'll soon have enough for dinner."
Harry Ferris had taken his nephews and niece out fishing on Long Island Sound. They were a jolly party: there was Uncle Harry himself, who, to use the language of one of his appreciative nephews, "had been everywhere, and knew everything," Tom and Charley Newton, two fine boys aged sixteen and fourteen, and Alice, their sister, a young lady of ten. Charley had distinguished himself so far by catching only dog-fish, a small species of shark.
"What do people call them dog-fish for?" asked Alice.
"I don't know," answered her uncle, "unless it is because they are so tough that a dog can't eat them."
"How rough their skins are!—just like sand-paper," remarked Tom, touching the fish Charley had just caught.
"The skins are sometimes used for making shagreen," said Uncle Harry. And then added, in answer to an inquiring look from Alice: "Shagreen is a sort of leather generally made from horses' or mules' hides. The genuine article comes from Turkey, and is used for covering small boxes, instrument cases, and the like; but the imitation made from sharks' hide is almost as good for all practical purposes."