Fastened to the back of the skate is a long, slender tail, like that of a rat, only larger, and between the tail and the round, flat body on the under side, are two things that really look like legs.  Perhaps the skate may use them to walk around on the bottom of the ocean, as a horseshoe crab uses his legs for walking.  But a skate can also swim, and in that way it comes up off the bottom, and often bites on the hooks of fishermen who do not at all want to catch such an unpleasant fish.

The skate swims, using the things like legs as a fish uses its fins, and sometimes, when landed on the shore, the fish really seems to be standing up on these legs, so Laddie was not so far wrong.  On each side of the skate were thin, flat fins, which were something like wings.  The skate had a humpy head and big, bulging eyes.

“What’s a skate for?” asked Russ, as he looked at the queer creature.

“And who gave it that name?” Laddie wanted to know.

“My!  You two are getting as bad at asking questions as Violet!” laughed Mr. Bunker.  “Well, I’ll answer as well as I can.  I don’t know how the fish came to be called a skate unless it sort of skates around on the bottom of the ocean.  Though when a skate is dead its tail curls up and around like the old-fashioned skates once used in Holland.  It may get its name from that.”

“Are they good to eat?” asked Russ.

“Some kinds are said to be,” answered Cousin Tom, “though I never tasted one myself.  I have heard of fishermen eating certain parts of the skates caught along here.  But I never saw any one do it.  Whenever I catch a skate I throw it back into the water.  I can’t see that they are good for anything.”

The skate which Laddie and Russ were watching, and which seemed to have been cast up on the beach by the waves, was flopping about, now and then raising itself on its queer legs, until, finally, the tide came up higher and washed it out into the sea again.

“I guess it’s glad to get back in the ocean,” said Russ.

“Yes,” agreed his brother.  “I’d have put it back in only I was afraid it might bite me.”

“No, I don’t believe it would,” said Cousin Tom.

“There’s heaps of funny things down at the seashore,” said Laddie, as he watched to see if the skate would swim back, but it did not.

“Lots of funny things,” agreed Russ.

“The shore is a good place to make riddles,” went on Laddie.

“And it’s a bad place to lose things,” said his brother.  “Look how Rose lost her locket.”

“Yes, that was too bad,” said Daddy Bunker.  “I’m afraid we shall never find that now.  There is so much sand here.”

“We’ve dug holes and looked all over,” said Russ, “but we can’t find it.”

“I wish we could find that box we had up on shore and that the waves came up and washed away,” remarked Laddie.  “Don’t you ’member the box you were going to open, Daddy?”