UC-NRLF SM 571 II:" . .-...,- . m mm ' ) -V- ^r " THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE GREAT FISHERIES THE WORLD. THE GREAT FISHERIES OF THE WORLD, Thomas JJebon aufo spate, make eleven efforts before it succeeded. The poet Drayton describes tins strange mode of locomotion with much graphic vigour, though, be it said, with some exaggeration : " Whenas the salmon seeks a fresher stream to find (Which yearly by the sea comes hither of his mind, As he in reason grows), and stems the watery tract Where Tivy falling down doth make a cataract, Forced by the rising rocks that there her course oppose, As though within their bounds they meant her to enclose; Here, when the labouring fish doth at the foot arrive, And knows that by his strength but vainly he doth strive, His tail takes in his teeth; and, bending like a bow That's to the compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw, Then springing with his tail, as doth a little wand That, bended end to end, and flirted from the hand- Far off itself doth cast, so doth the salmon vault ; And if at first he fail, his second somersault He instantly essays; and from his nimble ring Still yesting, never leaves until himself lie fling Above the streamful top of the surrounded heap."* It is an entertaining sight, in spring and summer-, to watch the salmon making their way up a stream. Every high tide brings up a number of them, and they seem to have no other object than the youth in Longfellow's " Excelsior." In the shallow places, you may see them swimming, or, more correctly speaking, wading, in water two or three inches deep, so that half their glittering, sheeny body is exposed to view. On they go, however, scrambling up the fords, and making tho water fly to the right and left, like ducks at play.t When the fish are numerous, you may catch sight of a dozen or so at once ; and at such points they might be killed by spears, or even by a stick, and, indeed, says Mr. St. John, many a salmon does come to his death in this way. The fisher- men, when the river is low, escape much useless fatigue, * Drayton, " Poly-Olbion," book xxi. t C. St. John, " Wild Sports of the Highlands," p. 54, ct sqq. (502) 2 16 SALMON-FISHING AT NIGHT. and save their nets from injury, by working in a quiet pool immediately above a shallow, where they station one of their number, who watches for the ascending flotilla, and gives a signal to his companions on its coming within ken. Forthwith they put out their nets, and they are almost certain to catch the salmon. And in this way very few of the fish escape while the water remains low, but as soon as a slight flood rises they can get up unper- ceived. In the night, as in the day, it is easy to distin- guish them, from the sparkle and sheen of the water as they struggle onward. Moreover, the noise they make is always' detected by the acute ear of the experienced fisher. There is something romantic, or, as lady novelists would say, thrilling, in listening during the "stilly night" to the hoarse cry of the watch when he discovers a fish, and the rushing sound of oars and boat immediately afterwards. Sometimes a stealthy otter suddenly appears in the shallows, having slipped quietly and unobserved through the deeper parts of the stream, until, for want of water to cover him, he is compelled to wade. As soon as he is descried, a general clamour is heard, for he is a daring poacher, and one of the fishermen's worst enemies. They endeavour to entangle him in the net, and if they succeed he immediately falls a victim to their vengeance ; but not infrequently he slips noiselessly to the side of the bank, hides in some hollow or reedy nook until the danger is past, and then glides away unperceived. Mr. St. John is of opinion that neither sea-trout nor salmon ever seem happy, except when breasting their way against a stream. It is certainly astonishing what difficulties they are ready to encounter and overcome. FISHING IN THE TAY. 17 111 the Findhorn, owing to the impetuosity of the current, its frequent and sudden floods, and its shifting beds of gravel and shingle, no cruives, or weirs, are made use of : they would be swept away as fast as built. But in the Spey, and many other Scottish rivers, large cruives are erected, which prevent the passage of the fish, except on Sundays and in floods. A cruive is a dam, or embank- ment, thrown across the river, with openings at intervals, to permit the descent of the water in a strong stream. Through those openings the fish pass into a kind of wooden cage, and as the entrance is made after the fashion of a wire mouse-trap, they are unable to find their way out again. However convenient they may be for the fishermen, the angler regards them with any other feeling than that of satisfaction. Salmon-fishing, as everybody knows, is conducted in a variety of modes : by the harpoon, by the line, by nets of various sizes and shapes. In the Tay the fishermen adopt the following procedure. The net being placed in the boat, one party begins to row slowly up the stream, while another party, carrying a rope attached to the net, proceed along the bank in the same direction. On arriv- ing at a certain point, the boat rows across the river, the net is run out, and the crew pull down to the starting- place, making a complete sweep of a considerable stretch of water. The men on the bank in like manner turn round, and make for the rendezvous, hauling on the rope as they move along. In this way the passage of the river is completely barred against the ascending fish, which are enclosed in the meshes of the net as its two ends are brought together, and in due time hauled ashore. By this wholesale process, a considerable number of sal- IS si>KAKix<; SALMOX. mon are caught on favourable occasions; and the salmon- fisheries in the Tay, and similar rivers, yield their pro- prietors very large returns. Spearing salmon is now illegal, but it is a very excit- ing sport, as the reader, if he is acquainted with Sir Walter Scott's " Iledgauntlet," will willingly acknow- ledge. Mr. St. John describes a scene of which he him- self was an eye-witness. The night was calm and dark. The steep and rugged rocks through which the river m:id(5 its way were illuminated in the most brilliant manner by fifteen or sixteen torches, carried by as many athletic and active Highlanders, which threw strange si lil'ting lights on the surface of the stream, and gave a \v<-ird aspect to the whole procedure. Sometimes one of the poachers for such they were would remain motion- less for a few moments, in eager yet patient expecta- tion that a fish started by his companions would swim within reach of his spear, as he stood with it ready poised, like one of Homer's heroes, and his excited countenance lighted up by his torch as he bent over the water. Then came loud shouts and a confused hurrying to and fro, as a magnificent fish darted in among the group ; noisy prills of laughter when some unlucky fellow, darting at his prey in the deep water, missed his balance and fell headlong into it. Every now and then a salmon would U> triumphantly hoisted into the air, its shining body quivering on an uplifted spear. The fish, as soon as caught, was carried ashore, where it was quickly des- patched by a veteran (islicr deputed to this office. The use of the leister, or spear, however, was prohi- bited by an Act of Parliament passed in 1859. Mr. AN EXCITING SPORT. 19 Russel characterizes the sport as butcherly and destruc- tive. " Night-leistering," he says, " with the glare of the pine-torches reflected from cliff, and wood, and water, with the yells, the laughter, and the immersions, was doubtless in some respects a fine sight, and a most excit- ing sport ; but it was slaughterous and wasteful, killing more fish in a few minutes than would have sufficed for a season's sport and killing them, too, just when they were most useful in the water, and most useless out of it. It was no uncommon thing, on some of the upper fisheries of the Tweed, to kill within an hour, on a February or November night, a greater number of fish than had been killed with the rod during the whole season (and the farther up the river, the greater or more entire becomes this truth), to say nothing of the far greater numbers killed by poachers with the same weapon, both in and out of the legal season." "'" So Captain Francks, writing in Oliver Cromwell's time, exclaims : " When the salmon goes to the shal- lows, that is the time the prejudicate native consults his opportunity to put in execution that barbarous practice of murdering fish by moonshine, or at other times to martyr them with the blaze of a wisp and a barbed spear. What ! are these cannibals or murdering moss-troopers to surprise fish by the engine of fire-light 1 Such dark con- spirators sprung from Fawkes or Cataline, or some infer- nal incubus." The true angler, in his pin-suit of this iioblu fish, will diic.lly use the fly. He may occasionally resort to other bait, such as salmon- roc, parrta.il, ininnoxv, worm, but * Ituss.'l, "The Salmon" (ed. 1854), pp 100, 101. 20 SALMON FLIES. his chosen weapon of destruction will be the skilfully- fashioned fly. In his use of it will be shown his dex- terity, his patience, his readiness of resource, his know- ledge of the habits and character of the fish. In his making of it will be shown his ingenuity, his profound lore, his accomplished manipulation. We cannot enume- rate here the various devices to which the fertile mind and hand may have recourse. Different rivers and dif- ferent seasons need different treatment. The fly that kills in a shallow of the Tweed will fail in a pool of the Spey or Ness. So there are Tweed flies, and Spey flies, and Forth and Teith flies, and flies for the Urchay and the Awe. And there are also flies of special renown, such as the Childers, the General, the Dundas, the But- cher, the Doctor, the Parson, the Fail-me-never, and the Black Dog. For the benefit of the inexperienced reader, we will describe the wonderful composition of the Fail- me-never : The body is made of black mohair, black hackle, and silver twist ; the wing, of mottled feather from the tail of the Argus pheasant ; the shoulders, of a twitch of orange mohair ; the tail is yellow. Here is a recipe for a fly of extraordinary killing powers : Tie with well -waxed silk a portion of silkworms' intes- tines on a highly-tempered and finished Limerick-made hook. ISTow for the tail : First come two turns of gold thread, then a tenth part of an inch of red floss silk. Next comes the tail, consisting of a bright gold feather from the crest of the golden pheasant. The body is now to be made of, alternately, a stripe of green, a stripe of blue, and the remainder of orange-coloured floss silk, AX EXTRAORDINARY SPECIMEN. 21 with a double binding of gold thread and silver tinsel. The legs are concocted of a black barn-door cock's hackle,, taken from him in winter, when the bird is in full plum- age ; next to the wing is placed a turn of grouse's feath- er, and two or three turns of the purple-black feather which is pendent on the breast of an old cock heron. Now for the wing which is composed of a mixture of feathers from, the mallard killed in this country j from the teal drake, also a native \ from the turkey-cock ; the bus- tard, from India ; a stripe or two of green parrot ; a little of the tippet of the golden pheasant ; a thread or two from the peacock's tail ; a bit from the Argus pheasant, and from the tail of a common hen pheasant ; all these mixed and blended together form an irresistible wing. Round the shoulder of it give a turn of the blue and black feather off a jay's wing. For the head, take a small portion of that substance called pig's wool, so mys- terious to the uninitiated, wool not being recognized as one of the usual products of a member of the Stddce ; then finish off with a few turns of black ostrich feather ; not forgetting, as a final touch, a couple of horns of red and blue macaw's feather. Now all this labour, and all these heterogeneous materials, result in the production of a fly which, according to a veteran angler, no salmon in a taking mood (one can hardly suppose the fish swallows it at the impulse of hunger) can resist. Behold the noble 8almo salar as he mounts suddenly from the cool depths of the pool, balancing himself for a moment while the fly quivers before him in the swirling eddy, and then seizing the gaudy bait with a rapid spring, to retreat apparently well pleased with his success in fly-catching, until he finds himself abruptly checked, brought to a stand, and held 22 EQUIPPED FOR THE FRAY. fast, as in iron gyves, by the unexpected strength of the mimic insect ! Every angler can tell you a greater or less number of stories connected with his exploits in salmon-fishing ; of the big fish he has caught, of the address displayed in catching them, of the runs they have given him, of mar- vellous adventures in pool and rapid, and of hair-breadth 'scapes and romantic incidents. Brightly-coloured pic- tures of incidents such as these enliven the pages of almost every book devoted to the art of angling. With- out borrowing from any personal experiences, we shall appropriate a description from the pen of Christopher North, which seems to us pre-eminent in accuracy of detail and picturesqueness of language. We do not doubt but that many anglers have enjoyed sport as good, and killed their fish under circumstances as exciting ; but we are confident that none have ever related their doings with half as much effect.* The angler is equipped, let us suppose, with a twenty- feet rod of Phin's, all ring rustling, and a-glitter with the preserving varnish, and lithe to its topmost tenuity as the elephant's proboscis, the hickory and the horn with- out twist, knot, or flaw from butt to fly a faultless taper, " fine by degrees and beautifully less," the beau- ideal of a rod by the skill of cunning craftsmen to the senses materialized ! A fish fat, fair, and forty ! " She is a salmon, therefore to be wooed she is a salmon, therefore to be won;" but shy, timid, capricious, head- strong, now wrathful and now full of fear, like any other female whom the cruel artist has hooked by lip or heart, Professor AVilson, " Recreations of Christopher North," ii. 5, 6. A FISHER'S EXPEDITION. 23 and, in spite of all her struggling, will bring to the gasp at last and then, with calm eyes, behold her lying in the shade dead, or, worse than dead, fast-fading, and to be re-illumined no more in the lustre of her beauty, in- sensible to sun or shower, even the most perishable of all perishable things in a world of perishing ! But the salmon, says our authority, has grown sulky, and must be made to spring to the plunging stone. Then suddenly, instinct with new passion, she shoots out of the foam like a bar of silver bullion ; and, relapsing into the flood, is in another moment at the very head of the waterfall ! Give her the butt, give her the butt, or she is gone for ever with the thunder into two fathom deep ! Now comes the trial of your tackle. Her snout is southwards right up the middle of the main current of the hill-born river, as if she would seek its very source where she was spawned ! She still swims swift, and strong, and deep and the line goes steady, boys, steady. There is yet an hour's play in her dorsal fin danger in the flap of her tail and yet may her silver shoulder shatter the gut against a rock. Why, the river was yes- terday in spate, and she is fresh run from the sea ! All the lesser waterfalls are now level with the flood, and she meets with no impediment or obstruction. The coast is clear ; no tree-roots here, no floating branches, for during the night they have all been swept down to the salt loch. In medio tutissimus ibis ay, now you feel she begins to fail -the butt tells now every time you deliver your right. What ! another mad leap ! yet another sullen plunge ! She seems absolutely to have discovered, or rather to be an impersonation of, the perpetual motion. But our quotation has extended to such a length that 24 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. we must pass over the further phases of the struggle be- tween the angler and the fish, and come to the final scene. The salmon is languidly lying afloat on the foam, as if all further resistance were vain, and she were bent on gracefully surrendering herself to death. But, put no faith in female ; she trusts to the last trial of her tail. Sweetly workest thou, O reel of reels ; and on thy smooth axle spinning sleepest, even as Milton describes her, like our own worthy planet The gaff ! the gaff ! Into the eddy she sails, sick and slow, and almost with a swirl, whitening as she nears the sand. There, she has it ! The gaff has struck right into the shoulder, fairer than that of Juno, Diana, Minerva, or Vemis, and she lies at last in all her glorious length and breadth of beaming beauty, fit prey for giant or demigod angling before the Flood ! We must now turn our attention to the natural his- tory of the salmon. The parent fish deposits her spawn in October, Novem- ber, and December, ascending the fresh-water streams for that purpose ; and the spawn quickens into life about April or May. The young fish are of course exceedingly helpless, and are seldom seen during the first week or two of their career, when they carry about with them as a provision for their sustenance a portion of the egg from which they sprung. At that time they measure about half an inch in size, and their appearance is so sin- gular that certainly 110 one would suspect they could eventually develop into fine grilse or salmon. The ani- mal, in fact, does not assume the shape of a perfect fish for about fifty days, after which it may be seen hovering THE SALMON'S GROWTH. 25 about the vicinity of its birthplace, weak and timid, hid- ing among the stones, and always apparently of the same colour as the " surroundings " of its asylum. Speedily the transverse bars of the parr begin to show themselves, and the fish grows with considerable rapidity, especially if it is to be a twelvemonth's smolt. The young fish continue to grow for a little longer than two years before the whole number reach the second stage in the life of the salmon, and develop into smolts ; after which they descend the rivers, and seek the salt water. It is to be noted, however, that half the quan- tity of any one hatching begin to change at a little over twelve months from the date of their birth : hence arises the anomalous circumstance of fish of the same hatching being partly grilse, weighing four pounds, and partly parr, weighing barely half an ounce. The smolts of the first year return from their sea- voyage while their brothers and sisters are still gambolling among the shallow waters of the upper streams, not only showing no desire for change, lout not being in a condition to endure it. What the salmon feeds upon while in the salt water has not been discovered ; it assimilates its food so rapidly, that none is found in its stomach when it is captured and opened. As it thrives apace, however, its feeding must be nutritious, and probably consists of crustaceans, herrings, sand-launces, and other small fish. The parr were at one time supposed to be a distinct species; but Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, in 1 834-3 G, by a series of experiments, proved that they are neither more nor less than young salmon ; and this fact has been con- firmed by observations taken at the Stormoiitfield breed- ing-ponds, on the Tay. 26 A SWIFT TRAVELLER. It has been ascertained that smolts returning from the sea within six or eight weeks of their first migration will weigh from three to five pounds. They are then known as grilse. Some reascend the rivers when weighing only a pound and a half or two pounds ; and these, in many places, are known as salmon peaL Thenceforth the salmon passes its life in annual migra- tions to the sea, returning to the rivers to spawn, or for other reasons, in the autumn, and frequently remaining during most of the winter. It revisits, if it can, the stream in which it has spent the earlier part of its exist- ence ', and the fish belonging to any particular river always exhibit some characteristic difference from those belonging to other rivers. It is surprising to what a dis- tance from the sea they will force their way ; ascending the Rhine to the Falls of SchafFhausen, and the Elbe to Bohemia. Their rate of speed is extraordinary ; they can travel fifteen hundred feet in a minute, or four hun- dred miles in a day ; but this is only in what an oarsman would call occasional " spurts." Still, with all the diffi- culties in their way, they will make twenty to twenty- five miles in as many hours. As we have already stated, the greatest perpendicular leaps they seem able to achieve do not exceed twelve or fourteen feet. If they attempt more, they fall back exhausted, and perish on the neigh- bouring rocks. But they can carry themselves up rushing and broken cataracts of a much more considerable eleva- tion by a series of characteristic bounds or boomerang springs. As spawning-time approaches, they undergo consider- able changes of colour, and both male and female assume a general duskiness. In. this state they are called *' foul BOUND TO THE SEA. '2 i fish," and their capture is illegal. After the spawning is completed they are known as " kelts," or " spent-fish : " the males are also termed " kippers," in allusion to the " kip," or cartilaginous hook of the under jaw; and the females a shedders" or "boggits." Let us recapitulate. The young fry, when first hatched, are known as parr ; when a twelvemonth old, they are smolts ; after their first migration, they become grilse; thence they develop into the full-grown mature " salmon," which, after spawning, is called a " kelt." Mr. Bertram is surely right in saying that the most remarkable characteristic of the Salmo solar is its extra- ordinary instinct for change. After the parr has grown into a smolt, its desire to visit the sea is so intense, especially if it has been bred in a breeding-pond, that it will leap from its place of confinement in the hope of attaining at once its salt-water goal. The instinct of river-bred fish on this point is not less strong. They rush towards the sea with as much eagerness as Xeno- phon and his Greeks, 'who saluted it with the famous cry of u Thalassa ! Thalassa !" Various opinions are ad- vocated as to the cause of this migratory mania ; at which, by the way, it would be very unbecoming in Englishmen to sneer. Some people affirm that in the pasture-grounds of Poseidon the fish finds that nutritious food which adds so rapidly to its size and weight. There cannot be the shadow of a doubt that sea-water ripens it to its prime condition ; the river fish not being equal in savouriness, crede experto ! to the noble specimens caught or netted in the briny estuaries. They lose in weight and deteriorate in quality from the moment they enter the fresh water. It is a curious fact, we may add, and an instance of the 28 SPAWNING-TIME. wonderful prevision of nature, that the eel, which is also a migratory fish, descends to spawn in the sea at the very time that the salmon ascends to spawn in the river. Were it otherwise, the roe of the salmon would be ab- solutely destroyed.* Spawning-time is from the end of autumn to the be- ginning of spring, or even the beginning of summer. In different rivers it differs considerably owing probably to differences of temperature, caused by the higher or lower latitude, the absence or neighbourhood of forests, low warm valleys, or snow-covered mountains The spawning takes place on beds of fine gravel where the water is tolerably shallow ; the same beds being used for this purpose year after year. The spawning female approaches the bed, escorted by at least one male, some- times by more than one ; in which case they fight lustily with their kips. In the gravel she makes a furrow with her tail, and in the furrow deposits her spawn, on which the male afterwards pours the vivifying milt. The eggs, when deposited and vivified, are covered by a movement of the female's tail. The time occupied in these pro- cesses varies from three to twelve days. The ova have to run the gauntlet, as it were, of a host of enemies trouts and other fishes, ducks and other water-fowl, and insect larvae which greedily devour them. Moreover, a spate in the stream may wholly sweep away the nursery and its contents, or overlay the eggs with gravel to such a depth that they are never hatched, or, if hatched, the young cannot emerge to the " light of day." It is im- probable, therefore, that the number of eggs hatched can bear any reasonable proportion to the number deposited. * Bertram, " The Harvest of the Sea," p. 1S8. SALMON IN ALASKA. 29 Salmon abound in the rivers of Alaska, the territory in. North- West America which Russia ceded a few years ago to the United States. So plentiful are they in the spring-time as to impede, it is said, the passage of boats ; and when a strong " south-easter " rises, it drives them ashore, where they lie in putrescent heaps ! In the neigh- bourhood of Sitka, extensive fisheries existed, and from one hundred thousand to one hundred an^l fifty thousand sal- mon were annually exported to the Sandwich Islands and elsewhere. Immediately, says Mr. Whymper, on the arrival of a boat-load of fish at the wharf, a number of the poorer women, some of them Indians, arranged them- selves in two long lines, and cleaned and gutted the fish with wonderful expedition. A few buckets of water were then thrown over the heap, and they were carried to the vats, and put in brine at once, to be ready for ex- portation. Each woman's payment was a large fish, weighing twenty or thirty pounds, and worth just nothing ! For salmon listen, ye epicures ! is the com- monest of common fish in all the rivers of the North Pacific, and esteemed accordingly as food fit only for those unhappy individuals who can get nothing better. How much it is to be desired that those abundant supplies of a nutritious " comestible " could be utilized for the benefit of our swarming populations in England and Scotland ! In the river Yukon are found at least two, and per- haps three, varieties of salmon. The largest kind some- times measures five feet; and boots are partly made with its tough skin. They are caught all down the river in weirs set in shallow places, in circular hand-nets, or by spearing. A flotilla of light birch canoes may be seen ascending the river in regular array ; and at a given sig- 30 THE NORTH AMERICAN RIVERS. nal the owner of each dips his round hand-net into the river, and if, when he raises it, a big salmon comes up floundering and struggling, as is generally the case, the helpless prisoner is hailed with a shout of derisive tri- umph. The enthusiastic angler cannot do better than undertake a trip to Alaska, if he would participate in salmon-catching on a large and easy scale ! Salmon frequent, most of the North American rivers, but especially the St. Lawrence and its tributaries. An American writer says that they are most plentiful on the north shore, and, as might be supposed, in those streams which are still outside of the confines of civilization. The noble fish usually makes his appearance about the 20th of May, and continues in season for two months. Nearly all the streams we speak of are interrupted in their course by waterfalls ; but there are few of these which offer any effectual obstruction to his upward pro- gress, and the stories related of his leaps are truly won- derful. The average weight of the Canadian fish is about fifteen pounds, but monsters weighing full forty pounds are not infrequently captured. The common mode of fishing is with a stationary net, set just on the margin of the river at low- water. When the tide rises, the salmon commence running, and becoming entangled by their gill- covers in the meshes of the net, are taken out dead by the fishermen at low- water. Formerly, as many as three hundred would be captured in this way at one time ; but either they are less plentiful, or they have profited by the lessons of a long and severe experience. The Indian mode of taking them is identical with the Scotch leistering. Two Indians embark in a canoe, and while one paddles it stealthily along, the other stands erect, SALMON-FISHING IN CANADA. with spear uplifted. A torch at the prow of the boat attracts the attention of the fish. They come with- in range, and are im- mediately speared. From an episode narrated by an Ame- rican angler, it may be inferred that salmon- fishing in Canada is attended by much the same adventures as in Great Britain. Describing an ex- pedition he made with two companions to the St. Margaret River, he says that they started from Ta- dousac at nine, and reached their place of destination at twelve. They found the river uncom- monly high, and a little "rily." Mak- ing a desperate effort, however, they threw their line about three hours, capturing four (502) SDIAN MODE OF TAKT 3 32 AN ANGLER'S NARRATIVE. salmon, one of which fell to the share of our authority. He (the salmon) was a handsome fellow, weighing seven- teen pounds, and in good condition ; he afforded his cap- tor's comrades no inconsiderable amount of fun, and placed him in a peculiar position. For the salmon had taken the hook when the angler was wading in swift water up to his middle, and as soon as he discovered his predicament, he wheeled round suddenly, and started down the stream. My rod, says the angler, bent nearly double, and I saw that I must allow him all the line he wanted ; and having only three hundred feet on my reel, I found it necessary to follow him with all speed. In doing so I lost my footing, and was swept by the current against a pile of logs. Meantime my reel was in the water, and whizzing away at a tremendous rate. The log upon which I de- pended happened to be in a balancing condition, and when I attempted to surmount it, it plunged into the current and floated down the stream, leaving your humble servant astride at one end, and clinging to it with all his might. Onward sped the salmon, the log, the fisherman ! At last the log drifted into an eddy, and while it was gyrating in incessant circles I abandoned it, and fortunately reached the shore in safety. My life having been spared, I was more anxious than ever to carry off the salmon which had led me into so much danger ; and so I held aloft the rod, and continued down the stream, over an immense number of logs and rocks, which seemed to have been set there for my particular discomfiture. On coming in sight of the fish, I found him in still water, with his glittering belly turned up- wards, and, in fact, " completely drowned." I imme- BRITISH SALMON-FISHERIES. 33 diately drew him up on a neighbouring sand-bank, and received the congratulations of my friends on my peculiar mode of taking salmon. The principal salmon-rivers in Great Britain are the Tweed, the Tay, the Spey, the Esk, and the Severn. Unfortunately, of late years, through over-fishing and poaching, our salmon-fisheries have suffered a grievous decay, and the interference of the Legislature has been invoked to prevent the resort to improper modes of capture, and to confine the fishing to those seasons of the year most suitable to the habits of the fish. In several places, moreover, salmon-breeding, according to the most improved principles of fish-culture, has been introduced, and with a degree of success which justifies the hope that streams now depopulated may once more yield an abun- dant supply. The salmon is of some importance as an addition to our food-resources. It is difficult, or almost impossible, to obtain any accurate statistics on this point ; but Mr. Russel tells us that in 1862, apparently an ordinary year, three Irish railways conveyed about 400 tons of salmon, or about 900,000 Ibs., being equal in weight and treble in value to 15,000 sheep. In Scotland the Tay alone furnishes about 800,000 Ibs., being equal in weight to 20,000 and in value to 60,000 sheep. The weight of salmon produced by the Spey is not in- ferior to the weight of mutton annually yielded to the butcher by each of several of the smaller counties. The diminution in the supply of food caused by the decay of the Tweed fisheries, is about 200,000 Ibs. a year. And, as Mr. Russel reminds us, in making comparisons between the supplies of fish and of flesh, we must recollect that 34 BRITISH SALMON-FISHERIES. fish, or at least salmon, though higher in money value, cost nothing for their "keep," make bare no pastures, hol- low out no turnips, consume no corn, but are, as Franklin expressed.it, "bits of silver pulled out of the water." The Tay salmon-fisheries are owned by various private proprietors and corporations, and yield an annual rent of about 18,000. On the Spey they may be said to be worth ,15,000 which is chiefly, if not wholly, paid to the Duke of Richmond. The rental of the Esk we estimate at 10,000, and that of the Tweed at 8000, but it varies considerably. It is fair, however, to compute the annual yield of the British salmon-fisheries, as a source of rental, at 70,000. Mr. Bertram, referring to a recent Report of the In- spectors of the English Fisheries, which embraced a sum- mary of the condition of ninety rivers, says : "I gather from it that considerable progress has already been made in arresting the decay of these valuable properties, and that there is every prospect of the best rivers being speedily repeopled with salmon to an extent that will secure them, under proper regulations, from again falling into so low a condition. A careful perusal of this report shows that fixed nets have been nearly abolished ; that portions of rivers not hitherto accessible to fish have been made so, passes and gaps having been created by hun- dreds. Poachers have been caught and punished with great success ; and, according to a review of the report in the Field, a journal which is well -versed in fishery matters, ' salmon have been seen in large quantities in places where they have not been seen these forty years.' " The following table shows the quantity of salmon im- ported into London, in boxes weighing each 112 Ibs., THE TWEED FISHERY. 35 from 1850 to the end of 1865, when the Legislature put an end to the open fisheries : * Year. Scotch. Irish. Dutch. Norwe- gian. Welsh. 1850 13,940 2135 105 54 72 1851 11,593 4141 203 214 40 1852 13,044 3602 176 306 20 1853 19,485 5052 401 1208 20 1854 23,194 6333 345 None 128 1855 18,197 4101 227 None 59 1856 15,438 6568 68 5 28 1857 18,654 4984 622 None 220 1858 21,564 6429 973 19 499 1859 15,630 4855 922 None 260 1860 15,870 3803 849 40 438 1861 12,337 4582 849 60 442 1862 22,796 7841 568 87 454 1863 24,297 8183 1227 180 663 1864 22,603 8344 1204 837 752 1865 19,009 6858 1479 1069 868 The lover of salmon cannot regard without feelings of apprehension and indignation the condition of the Tweed fisheries indignation at the manner in which they are spoliated, apprehension lest exhaustion should be the re- sult of the spoliation. Recent legislation appears to have done but little good. A new Government inquiry is promised, however ; and it is to be hoped, rather than expected, that it will remove all grievances, and restore the fisheries to prosperity. If the stranger inquire of a Tweed fisherman what is the fons et origo mali, he will be told it is the systematic " poaching " that is carried on in spite of watchers and constables ; and he will come to the conclusion, perhaps, that the best remedy for so serious an evil is not a Government Commission, but the diffusion of knowledge, and the growth of a healthy * Bertram, " The Harvest of the Sea," p. 222. 36 POACHING AND POACHERS. public opinion. Poaching has been called an " abject trade," but it is certainly a profitable one j and a large portion of the population seem unwilling to believe that the rights of property extend to river-waters. They appear to appreciate intensely " The good old rule, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." Lord Minto asserts that "not one man in a hundred believes himself to be violating any moral law when he offends against the Tweed Acts." And the improved con- dition of the salmon-fisheries has given a fresh stimulus to poaching by largely increasing its gains. The salmon being a migratory fish, ascending from the depths of ocean to the sweet waters of some sequestered woodland pool, falls an easy victim to its human enemies, and perishes by hundreds every year just at the time when it is most valuable ; for, however costly a thirty-pound salmon may be on the slab of a Bond Street fishmonger, it is infinitely more precious when on the point of multiplying and re- plenishing its kind.* Few persons have any idea of the multitudes of fish captured and killed by the poachers. It is on record that a gang of these men (and occasionally women) have taken a hundred salmon from the spawning beds in one night. To bestow any sympathy on such ignorant and destructive plunderers is surely ridiculous ! The salmon is beset by natural enemies, and nature has so carefully guarded against its unlimited increase, that we do not need to step forward and wage an ex- terminating war against it when it is unfit for food, and preparing to reproduce its kind. It is a well-known fact * See The Times, August 27, 1874 : "The Tweed Fisheries." POACHING AND POACHERS. 37 that a given area of water will breed and feed only a given number of fish. The interference of the poacher is therefore an offence against economic as well as moral laws. Yet in 1872-73, 327 persons were accused of violations of the Tweed Acts; 164 of whom paid the fines in which they were mulcted, while 41 were im- prisoned, 44 absconded, and GO were acquitted. No fewer than 235 various engines of capture were taken from poachers during the same period. " The poacher's argument,"* says a contemporary, " is just the old-fashioned one which has often been made to do duty, that as a river is, generally speaking, the pro- perty of twenty or thirty people, the salmon moving up and down its stream cannot be the property of any par- ticular person. But there is one crushing reply to this proposition, which must be obvious to the meanest com- prehension ; it is that by no species of logic can the salmon in the Tweed and its tributaries be considered the property of the poacher As a plain matter of fact, not all the Queen's army could effectively watch a great salmon-river if there were an extensive population in its course. The Tay proprietors are fortunate ; that river flows through a land where there is no population to disturb its finny treasures. On the Tweed and its many tributaries there is a considerable population, many of whom have but a slight knowledge of ' mine and thine/ and all of whom have a taste for salmon and a strong * A dour Scotch " wabster" once argued with the writer that the water in the Tweed, as it was constantly flowing, could not belong to Lord or the Duke of . We asked him to whom the bed of the river would belong, if it suddenly dried up ? Further, observing a water-butt in his garden, we re- quested him to state to whom its contents belonged when filled by the rain, which no more belonged to him than to his neighbour. Our friend shook his head, but made no " articulate " reply. 38 POPULAR PREJUDICES. desire for gain. The cost of protecting the Tay salmon- fisheries is only about a fourth of what it costs the Com- missioners to protect the river Tweed." It must not be supposed, however, that no poaching takes place on the Tay. The worst of it is, that the public themselves are growing impatient of a legislation which is designed for their benefit, simply because they hear so much of it 1 In Scotland the river-fisheries are regulated by about twenty Acts, and have been the subject of more Govern- ment inquiries than we care to count. The consequence is, that people who know little or nothing of the economy of the fish, or of its natural history, have come to regard the favour shown to this particular inhabitant of the waters with something like annoyance. At the bottom of this feeling, we suspect, lurks a kind of undefinable prejudice against the salmon as the rich man's fish. Its present price renders it a rare dish at the table of the householder of average means ; and as for the peasantry, most of them say, we fancy, what a villager once said to ourselves, " Saumon is iia for the likes of we ! " They grudge, therefore, the care and attention bestowed upon it, and hate the supervision exercised by the police force. Their prejudices would disappear if their ignorance were enlightened ; if they could be made to understand that a regulation of the fisheries is essential if the salmon is to be preserved as a British fish, and that efficient regulation means increased supply, and increased supply reduced prices. The salmon is a valuable article of food, and with proper care ought to be brought within the reach of the average purchaser. There is no reason why it should not become much cheaper than meat; for which. SUMMING UP THE QUESTION. 39 at times, it would then be an agreeable substitute. Formerly, it was so common an article of diet in Scot- land, that farm-servants and others, on engaging with new employers, would make it a condition that it should appear on their tables only a certain number of times a week. Otherwise, they would have breakfasted on salmon, dined on salmon, and supped on salmon, every day ! No immediate fear need be entertained of any very early return of such unlimited salmon-consumption. What would become of the salmon, it has been asked, if they were abandoned to the cruel mercies of the poacher 1 The answer is easily given. To judge from the experience of the past, in ten years not a Salmo salar would be found in our streams ! It is certain that at one time the salmon-fisheries of Great Britain were nearly annihilated through greed and want of management and indiscriminate fishing. It is equally certain that the prudent legislation of recent years has done much to recuperate them, and that a steady persistence in the present course cannot but be productive of the best re- sults. " The philosophy of the whole question," says an enthusiastic writer, " lies in a nutshell. If the man who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before is a benefactor to his race and his country, the same may be emphatically said of him who rears two salmon to-day for the one he reared twenty years ago." There is no end to the destructive appliances which man has brought to bear against this lordly fish ; and it is a matter for wonder that any who once ascend our rivers should find their way back into the sea. Nor would they do so, but for the admirable institution of 40 A CRUEL DECEPTION. "close-time. " The most fatal of all these " military engines" is the common sweep-net, which in many of our streams is in use for miles and miles on both banks, and at the same time ; so that the fish needs be cunning which would get in safety to the retirement of the upper waters. Not less deadly is the still -net, the stake-net, or the hang- iiet. Further, the pole and the basket anxiously await the sentimental or over-active fish that finds an amuse- ment in jumping up waterfalls. By the way, a good story is told of Lord Lovat, the Jacobite rebel. It is said that when luncheon-time approached, he would betake himself to a " fall " on his estate famous for its leaping fish, and place a caldron of boiling water in such a position that a salmon missing its spring would tumble into it, and thus commit "salmonicide" after a novel and original fashion ! Whereupon the cynical nobleman would eat his lunch with peculiar gusto. Numerous are the ingenious and stealthy deceptions which practise on the credulity and curiosity of the fish, or on his hasty greediness. Slowly sailing up the fresh breezy stream, he catches sight of what seems a bit of rainbow, a flash of many colours ; darts at it merrily, and finds himself impaled on a horrid hook at the end of an oiled line, which tugs at him, and plays with him, and holds on to him in spite of all his efforts to get free ! He plunges into a deep pool, and rests awhile ; then, thinking his enemy is away, he seeks to glide down the river. In a moment he finds himself checked; pulled up suddenly at the will of some mysterious and powerful creature, whose formidable shadow he sees reflected on the waters. Away he goes again with a jerk; but this creature is as cunning as he is powerful, and all his manoeuvres are anticipated " HARLING " THE SALMON. 41 and foiled until, at length, he suffers himself, palpitating and shuddering, to be hauled out of his native element, and stretched upon the " flowery mead," a victim ! It may be that Salmo solar is hungry, and affects a little bit of fish ; for he too has epicurean sympathies. Well, in the very nick of time a shy little minnow makes his appearance ; now dangling right before his jaws, now receding into the distance, now approaching him again, until he is tempted to dart at and seize it to find himself befooled by his appetite. " And," adds a lively writer, "as if a man could not do harm enough with one rod and line, which a providential arrangement of hands has made the full complement of his offensive armoury, he gets him a boat if he be suitably situated, and hangs him out astern therefrom three rods, each with its line and lure. A second conspirator the boatman tacks quietly across and across the stream, thus drawing the lines through the water, while the first sits cat-like in the stern. Suddenly a reel rattles, the boatman shouts a husky ' therrum,' and the contest between brains and instinct commences ; some- times, it is true, to the discomfiture of the brains. The number of rods renders it possible to pander to so many tastes at once, that the salmon falls a frequent prey to this great sport of 'harling.' " For this sport of " harling," which is both exciting and effective, it would seem necessary that the stream should be broad, so as to afford space for the movements of the boat ; and the current quick, in order that the lines may be kept always in new water as the boat drops slowly down. In a romantic burn, where the water tumbles and flashes over rocky ledges or eddies, and whirls round great 42 A GREENLAND FASHION. boulders, a boat, of course, is useless ; nor is it needed, as under such circumstances the salmon always rise quickly enough to the fly. But the fly cannot be used advantageously in an ample river, or loch, or estuary, while in either place harling may safely be adopted. The Greenlanders catch the salmon with the hand, or with a forked stick, groping among the great stones where the fish conceal themselves. But the method most com- monly adopted is this : They erect an embankment at the mouth of those streams which discharge their waters into the sea. The embankment is built of stones, so arranged as not to obstruct the flow of the stream ; and for the facilitating this flow, a small sluice is opened up in it. When the tide rises, it easily covers both dyke and sluice, and the salmon has no difficulty in passing : it ascends the stream to a considerable height, and very frequently " forgets itself" in the fresh water; so that, when the tide ebbs and the sluice closes spontaneously, the salmon finds itself imprisoned in a reservoir whose embankment it cannot cross. In a short time it lies almost dry, and the Greenlanders capture their prize without any difficulty. In Iceland, the fishermen, stationing themselves on the two banks of a water-course, extend a net right across the latter ; then advancing against the current, they impel before them the unlucky salmon, which, when no longer able to retreat, spring upon the shore. As many as two hundred at a time are caught in this fashion. In Finland, the noisiest and most turbulent point of the river is selected, and the waters are pent up in a AMONG THE INDIANS. 45 narrow channel formed by piles sunk deeply in their bed, and bound together by branches of trees. A few open- ings are left through which the fish can pass ; but across these openings stout nets are extended, and the fish, once entangled in the snare, is unable to extricate itself. The riverine peasants, says Acerbi, walk upon these piles with a truly wonderful address, though the current often agitates them in a very perceptible manner. Men, women, children, all leap from pile to pile with the most singular agility. We felt desirous to assist them in drawing their nets ; we were rash enough to cross a third of the palisade ; but the sight of the water swirling and eddying beneath our feet turned one of my companions giddy, and had he not been checked in time he would have fallen into the river. The children, and even the men, confide too rashly in their nimbleness, and it is seldom a year passes without one of them falling into the water at the risk of being drowned, since the violence of the current precludes all possibility of a boat being kept within reach to render assistance. The Shoshony Indians, who dwell on the bank of the Serpent River, to the west of the Rocky Mountains, devote themselves entirely to the salmon-fishery. There is a place named the Salmon's Fall (Chute-du-Saumon) \ it is a succession of rapids, with a perpendicular cascade above them of fully twenty feet. An incredible number of salmon is caught here. They begin to leap soon after sunset, reascending the course of the river. Some of the Indian fishermen then plunge into the midst of the rapids, swimming with equal strength and dexterity. Others station themselves on the rocks, others stand waist-deep 46 A SALMON-SPEAR. in the waves ; and all, armed with spears, strike death to the salmon as the latter attempt to leap, or fall back in the water. It is a continual massacre. XDIANS SPEAKING SALMOV. The spear of which these Indians make use is singularly constructed. It is armed with a fragment of eland's horn, perfectly straight, and about seven inches long, to the point of which an artificial barb is attached with some well-gummed thread. The iron is fastened by a stout rope, some inches long, to a great willow pole. If the fisher's aim be good, the lance-head frequently tra- verses the body of the fish. He afterwards detaches it easily, and leaves the salmon struggling with the rope in its body, while the fisherman grasps the pole. But for THE CHATEAU-LIN FISHERIES. 47 this arrangement, the willow rod would be broken by the weight and struggles of the fish. Several thousand salmon are caught in a single day's fishing. A traveller, who was present on one occasion, asserts that he saw a salmon make a leap of nearly thirty feet from the point where the water began to foam up to the summit of the fall ! The fisheries of Chateaulin have been graphically de- scribed by Deslandes. Chateaulin is situated in Low r er Brittany. The fishing-station consists, he says, of a double row of closely-planted poles, which cross the river from bank to bank, and being sunk to an equal depth, afford a kind of practicable causeway. To the left, down the river, is a kind of grated reservoir, measuring fifteen feet square, and so constructed that the river current flows into it of its own impetus. In the midst of this reservoir, and almost on a level with the water, may be seen an aper- ture of eighteen to twenty inches in diameter, surrounded by blades of tin slightly bent, which are shaped like isosceles triangles, and open and shut easily. As a whole, they are not unlike the mouths of those mouse-traps made of iron wire. The salmon, guided by the current to- wards the reservoir, enters it without difficulty by push- ing aside the tin plates it meets on its way, and whose bases are set round the hole. These plates, when drawn in together, form a cone, but on opening out assume the shape of a cylinder. On emerging from the reservoir the salmon enters a basin, from which it is drawn by the fishermen in a net attached for this purpose to the ex- tremity of a pole. Their skill is so great that they never (502) 4 48 THE CHATEAULIN FISHERIES. fail to bring out immediately the particular fish on which they set their choice. Salmon do not always come in the same abundance. If they arrive one by one they all repair to the reservoir, and from the reservoir to the basin, without ascending further ; but if they arrive in numerous shoals, the females attracting the males, who redouble their strength and ardour to follow them, then they sweep through the piles which form the causeway with an incredible velo- city ; the eye can scarcely follow them. In this way a great number of salmon would escape the fishermen if they did not take care to embark in small flat boats and float along the causeway, spreading out nets whose meshes are extremely close ; every fish entangled in these is im- mediately conveyed into the reservoir, where it disgorges its food, and acquires a more exquisite flavour. This fishery begins about the end of September, and reaches what we may call its climax towards the end of January. Prodigious quantities of fish are then captured. It grows slack in May, and entirely ceases in the month of July. The value of salmon, eitlier as a means of sport or as an article of food, depends largely on the part of the river where he is captured. If he is hooked near the tidal waters, he is usually in good condition for sport, and in equally good condition for the table. But if taken in the higher waters, unless he is a fresh-run fish, still invigor- ated by his ocean food, he is comparatively an ignoble prey. There is no enjoyment for the true angler, however, like fly-fishing; and the hero of a hundred fields probably CAUGHT AND WON. 49 never feels half the pleasure in his victories that the angler feels who has hooked, and played with, and cap- tured his salmon. Away with your nets j take the pliant rod, the well-oiled line, and the cunning bait, and set out to match your skill against the salmon's instinct. You find a suitable spot a quiet pool within hearing of the music of a woodland waterfall ; dexterously you cast your fly, and then you wait and watch. What minutes of delightful suspense ! At last your patience is rewarded. A bite a quiver a plunge, and away up the middle of the river darts the wounded fish. The angler hastens after her ; away she goes, swift and strong, and fresh ; but the line holds true, and, spite of her leaps and plunges, gains upon her efforts. She slackens her pace ; by degrees her exertions are less strenuous ; as the reel is carefully wound up, she yields more and more to approaching fate ; and now her silver side brightens on the foamy stream, and, utterly spent, she surrenders herself to death. In this way are salmon caught and won CHAPTER II. THE GADID^E AND PLEURONECTIDJ5. | HE Gadidce family is very numerous, and in- cludes some of the fish most important from a commercial point of view, and most valued as additions to our food supplies. It belongs to the sub-order Anacanthini (or " soft rays") of the order Teleostei ; and its principal members are the cod, the haddock, the whiting, and the ling. These are popularly known (as well as the Pleuronectidce) as " white-fish." Let us deal with them in the order in which we have named them. The COD (Gadus morrhua, or Morrhua vulgaris) is so well known as scarcely to require description ; but the distinctive features of the genus to which it belongs are the three dorsal fins, two anal fins, and a barbule beneath the chin. It is a large, plump, solid fish, frequently attaining the weight of one hundred pounds ; but, whether large or small, is always nutritious and well-flavoured. Its reproductive power is enormous ; the roe of the female has been estimated to contain from four to nine millions of eggs ; * a reproductive power rendered necessary to * Leuwenhoeck counted 9,344,000 eggs in a single female. HABITAT OF THE COD. 51 compensate for the havoc committed among its kind by its numerous enemies. We meet with this valuable fish in all the waters of the northern hemisphere between the 40th and 60th parallels of latitude. It would seem, as an old writer puts it, that Providence has willed the cod should abound in the temperate and northern regions; in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, the Orkneys, and " many parts of Muscovy," as well as in other countries where cereals cannot be cultivated on account of the inclemency of the climate. And where the fishery is successful the inhabi- tants not only make its products, either fresh or dried, their great substitute for food, " but sell them in large 52 THE GREAT COD BANK. quantities to foreign merchants, who convey them into the interior of Europe." The great rendezvous of the cod appears to be the cele- brated bank which lies off the island of Newfoundland, and is known as the Great Cod Bank. It forms a sub- marine ridge, about one hundred miles in length by sixty miles in breadth. So enormous at times is the accumu- lation of fish in its vicinity, that the fishermen can do little else from morn to night than cast the line, and haul it in, and open the struggling prey to bait their hooks afresh with its entrails. They are packed together so closely that a line, dropped haphazard into their midst, frequently hooks a dozen or more by some part or other of their body. And it is affirmed that a single fisher will take from three hundred to four hundred fish a day. The voracity of the cod is remarkable. It feeds upon molluscs, crustaceans, the herring, the whiting, and even its own kind, besides an infinite variety of smaller fishes. It flings itself indifferently on every object that conies within its purview ; not despising, in case of need, an ounce or so of lead. And, according to Anderson, nature has endowed it with a facility which, indeed, this voracity renders almost indispensable of vomiting, so to speak, its stomach ; of turning it inside out, in front of its mouth ; and after emptying it, and cleansing it in the sea-water, returning it into its proper position, after which it recommences eating. And its digestive organs act with so much rapidity that in less than six hours it assimilates any kind of food, however indigestible. We conclude, therefore, that dyspeptic complaints are un- known among the Gadidse ! Almost every part of the cod, as Cuvier tells us, is USEFULNESS OF THE COD. 53 adapted for the nourishment of man and animals, or for some other purposes of domestic economy. The tongue, for instance, whether fresh or salted, is a great delicacy ; the gills are carefully preserved, to be employed as baits in fishing ; the liver, which is large and good for eating, also furnishes an enormous quantity of oil, which is an excellent substitute for that of the whale, and useful for the same purposes ; the swimming-bladder furnishes an isinglass not inferior to that yielded by the sturgeon ; the head, in places where the cod is taken, supplies the fisher- men and their families with food. The Norwegians give it with marine plants to their cows, for the purpose of stimulating a greater production of milk. The vertebrae, the ribs, and the bones in general are given to their cattle by the Icelanders, and to their dogs by the Kamtschat- dales. These same parts, properly dried, are also em ployed as fuel in the desolate steppes which border on the Icy Sea. The roe furnishes a table dainty, and is also used, or, more correctly speaking, wasted, as ground-bait for the sardine-fishery, as we shall see hereafter. Cod- liver oil (oleum jecor is aselli) is recognized as a very valu- able therapeutic agent, and in the earlier stages of con- sumption and scrofulous affections of the joints and bones acts almost as a specific. The reader will see, therefore, that the cod is a fish which in its time plays many im- portant parts, and will appreciate its commercial and economic value. In Lent, and on Fridays, dried or salted cod is much eaten by Roman Catholics and others ; but there can be no doubt that, to do justice to the fish, it ought to be eaten fresh. Cod-curing, however, is a staple trade at Newfoundland, and is practised also in many of the 54 COD-CURING. fishing-towns of Scotland. There is 110 particular diffi- culty in the process. First, catch your fish. Next, cure it as soon as possible after it is caught. Split it open from head to tail ; cleanse it thoroughly from every par- ticle of blood ; drain it, after cutting away a portion of the back-bone ; deposit it with other fish, similarly prepared, in a long vat or trough, and cover it well with salt, placing a heavy weight upon it to keep it down in the pickle. Take your fish, when sufficiently pickled, out of its repository ; drain it ; wash and cleanse it ; and bleach or pine it by exposure to the sun and air on the open beach. After a while it will acquire a peculiar whitish appear- ance, technically known as the bloom. Then your labour is over, and your dried cod is ready for the store, closet, or the market. Ling is cured in the same manner; and both ]ing and cod are very palatable when thus prepared, either boiled and served up with sauce, or toasted like a Finnan haddock. Fresh cod are in season from September to March ; they are in finest condition in the months of November, December, and January. The largest cod-fisheries are carried on in the North Sea and off the banks of Newfoundland. To the latter we shall presently refer. The cod-bank at the Faroe Islands has been almost ruined by over-fishing, and the same is true of the once celebrated Dogger-Bank. There are immense supplies, however, on the west coast of Ice- land, which, as yet, have been scarcely touched. At present the greater proportion of the white-fish sent to the London market comes from the North Sea fishing- grounds, and the fishery is conducted after the following fashion : THE COD-FISHEKY. 55 The modern cod-smack is built for speed, with large deep wells for carrying her cargo alive; she costs 1500 or more, and is usually manned by a crew of eleven men and boys. Her average expense per week is 20 during the long-line season, but rises considerably if she is unfor- tunate in losing lines. The number of these taken to sea depends on the numerical strength of the crew. Each man has a line of 50 fathoms (or 300 feet) in length ; attached to it are about a hundred " snoods," with hooks already baited with mussels, and pieces of herring or whiting. Each line is laid clear in a shallow " scull," or basket, so that it can run out freely as the boat forges ahead. When they reach the fishing-ground the men heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flag-staff fixed to it about six feet in height. This buoy is kept stationary by a rope, called the " pow-end," which is dropped by means of an anchor or heavy stone to the bottom. To the pow- end is also fastened the fishing-line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat sails ; or, if the wind be unfavour- able, is propelled by the rowers. When the line is exhausted the end is allowed to drop, and the boat is carried back to the buoy. Here the pow-end is hauled up, and the fishermen carefully haul in their line with whatever fish it may have hooked. It is not often that it comes up unproductive. The booty, however, varies. Sometimes as many as seven or eight hundred fish are caught in a single haul ; seldom fewer than two hun- dred ; but occasionally the cod are eaten off the line by dog-fish and other enemies, and all that comes up to the fisherman is a " beggarly array" of empty hooks, or a few fragments of flesh and u skeleton or two. 56 AMATEUR FISHING. Mr. Bertram tells us, and tells us truly, that hungry cod-fish will seize any kind of bait ; and for the long or great lines we have been describing, you may use bits of whiting, herring, haddock, and of almost every fish which swims in the sea. For hand-lines, however, the best bait is mussels or white whelks, and the next best lug-worms. If the reader should spend a few weeks in the later autumn at any of the coast-towns of Fife or Haddington- shire, he cannot do better than arrange for a brief expe- rience of " deep-sea fishing." He need not venture further out than the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, or the Bell Rock. Bait will be provided by the fishermen ; or, if he takes his spade or three-pronged fork, he can dig up a supply of lug- worms on the sands. The lug is about five inches long and half an inch thick. The only part used as bait is the head part. Mussels or white whelks are caught by a line ornamented with a number of pieces of carrion or cod-heads, and laid along the bottom in a locality where they are known to be plentiful. The whelks fasten upon the cod-heads, are pulled up, stowed away in bags, and preserved in the well of the boat until wanted. The English fishers largely employ the trawl-net in their white-fish fisheries, though the practice is sometimes described as injurious to the fishing-grounds. The trawl-net is worked from a boat called a trawler; generally a vessel of about thirty-five to fifty tons, manned by a crew of five or six men and two or three boys, who frequently share both the risk and the profit on the co- operative principle. Each yawl is furnished with two masts, and three sets of sails to suit various states of THE TRAWL-NET, 57 weather. The trawl-rope is seven hundred and twenty feet in length, and six inches in circumference ; and to this rope are attached the different parts of the trawling apparatus namely, the beam, the trawl-heads, bag-net, ground-rope, and span or bridle ; the whole being hauled in and worked by means of a capstan. The beam, made of heavy elm wood, is thirty-eight feet long, tapers at either end, but is about eight to ten inches thick in the middle. At each extremity is fixed an oval ring (or " trawl-head "), measuring four feet by two feet six inches. The upper part of the bag-net, which is about one hundred feet long, is fastened to the beam, the lower part being attached to the ground-rope, while the ends of the ground-rope are brought round the trawl-heads. These being allowed to fall quite slackly, the mouth of the bag-net forms a semicircle when dragged over the ground. We trust the reader who has never seen a trawl-net is now able to form a tolerably accurate conception of one. He has then to think of it as fastened to the trawl-rope by means of another rope, which is of about the same thickness, and about double the length of the beam ; this is the "span" or "bridle." Each end of the span is attached to the beam so as to form a loop, and to this loop is knotted the trawl-rope. The ground-rope is usually an old rope, as, in case the net should encounter any obstruction in the water, it is desirable this rope should break, and allow the remainder of the gear to be hauled up. If the warp broke instead of the ground-rope, the trawling apparatus would be left at the bottom. The trawl-boat, while the net is out, sails along at the rate of two to three knots an hour. 58 LINE-FISHING. The fish thus caught are turbot, brill, haddock, skate, sole, and other flat fish, besides occasional cod. Herrings are also trawled for on the English coast. It is unques- tionably a wholesale system of fishing, yielding large re- turns ; but, from the manner in which it sweeps the bottom clear of everything that comes within its meshes, there can be no doubt that it is injurious in many localities, and it ought not to be allowed too near the shore. Another remedy for over-fishing generally would be to legislate for the cod, haddock, and the like, as we legis- late for the salmon ; and to establish a close-time for each fish, according to the occurrence of its spawning season. We are indebted to Mr. Cobb for the introduction of a new and improved mode of line-fishing for cod. He fixes a small piece of cork about twelve inches above the hook ; this keeps the bait afloat, and shows it more plainly to the hungry fish. The fishermen, when not busy with the great or long-lines, fish with hand-lines, each armed with a couple of hooks, and each hook sus- pended in the water by its little buoy of cork. A heavy weight attached to the lower extremity of the line keeps it steady near the ground ; and in this way enormous quantities of cod, as well as of haddock, whiting, hake, ling, pollack, and coal-fish, are caught in British waters. It is related that four hundred to five hundred and fifty cod have been taken in ten hours by a single fisher ; and oif the Dogger-Bank a couple of men have caught eighty score in one day. A great portion of the dried cod which reaches our markets is imported from Newfoundland, where cod- curing is carried on as an extensive and profitable trade. AT NEWFOUNDLAND. 59 It is shared by both English and French fishermen : the former establishing their curing-houses at St. John's, the chief town ; the latter at Saint- Pierre and Miquelon Islands. The curing processes adopted by both are very similar. A shed a chaujffunt is raised upon piles, standing one half in the water and one half on shore ; it is constructed of planks and posts, through which the air circulates freely, but roofed in with old canvas or sailcloth. Here the fish are opened and washed, the intestines removed, the liver carefully set aside ; after which the split fish are packed between thick layers of salt, drained, and dried upon the open strand.* DRYING COD NEWFOUNDLAND. The oil pressed from the liver is received into a caldron sunk in the earth, and covered by a roof nine feet in height. When carefully prepared, and strained off into the casks, this oil is perfectly pure, almost without smell, and, literally, clear as crystal. * Gobineau, " Tour du Monde," 1SG3. 60 GASPARD DE CORTEREAL. Drying-sheds are used in many parts of the Newfound- land coasts. They are built of stone, and so situated as to obtain all the sunshine available in that region of fogs, and to admit of a free current of air. The sun's heat is desirable, but not its rays ; and these are warded off by an arrangement of branches, which can be shifted so as to prevent them from striking directly on the fish, while the wind is still at liberty to blow upon it. The wind dries, say the Newfoundlanders, but the sun scorches. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of this nutritious and most useful fish. When, writes an ac- complished author, towards the commencement of the sixteenth century, Gaspard de Cortereal (a Portuguese gentleman, jealous of the Spaniards, and their rival in the desire of discovering new countries) cast anchor in the midst of the fogs of the savage coasts of a sterile island, and landed for the first time in Newfoundland, he certainly did not think that he was opening for Europe a source of riches more profitable, equally certain, and far less exhaustible than those which the proud rivals of his nation derived from the mines of Potosi, the conquest of which had been effected with such effusion of blood ; but the fact has so turned out, and a fish in other respects by no means remarkable has become, in the hands of almost every nation in Europe, the origin of one of their most assured and lucrative branches of commerce. We agree with our author's reflections, but dispute his facts. The discovery of the Terra de Haccalhaes, or " Codfish-land," was made by John, not Gaspard, Cor- tereal ; and took place in or about 1463, not towards the commencement of the sixteenth century. The Portuguese would seem to have commenced the cod-fishery soon after EARLY DAYS OF THE COD-FISHERY. 61 the discovery of the island; which, in 1496, was redis- covered by John and Sebastian Cabot, and named Prima Vista. Early in the sixteenth century they employed in this new branch of commerce upwards of two hundred vessels ; but the sturdy English soon put in their claim for a share, and they too, in turn, were followed by French and Dutch, Norwegians and Danes, and Spaniards. Hoare, an English merchant, made an attempt to colon- ize Newfoundland in 1536, but failed disastrously; Sir Humphrey Gilbert, however, was more successful in 1583. About this time the English vessels employed in the fishery numbered fifty; the Spanish, one hundred; the Biscayan, twenty or thirty; the Portuguese, fifty; and the French, one hundred and fifty. Among all these, it is said,* the English were distinguished by the better equipment of their vessels ; while they seem to have claimed, without objection or denial on the part of the foreign fishermen, a sovereignty over the surrounding seas founded, it may be, on the discoveries of Cabot and Davis. Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, the English fleet resorting to the Newfoundland banks mustered two hundred sail, and employed upwards of eight thousand seamen. In 1623 Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord Balti- more, succeeded in planting a colony in the south-eastern part of the island, which he named Avalon, and of which he appointed his son governor. Two years later the English fishery had assumed such large proportions that the ports of Devonshire alone employed one hundred and fifty ships, which disposed of their fish to Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In the reign of Charles II. a tax * Harris, " Collection of Travels," ed. 1753, vol. ii G2 NATIONAL DISPUTES ABOUT THE FISHERIES. which the French had been accustomed to pay to England for the privilege of fishing off Newfoundland was remitted, and our trade began to decline, while that of France pro- portionately increased. This result was necessarily dis- pleasing to Englishmen, and a sturdy cod-merchant, in 1676, determined to give his rivals a lesson. Taking with him one hundred and two twenty-gun ships, and a couple of ships-of-war, he succeeded, in spite of French fortifications, in capturing as many cod as yielded him the noble sum of 386,400. What France failed to gain by open force, she next attempted to win by stealthy encroachments ; and though the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 had formally recognized Newfoundland as a British possession, she had made such progress that in 1721 she had no fewer than four hundred vessels trading in cod, and had almost driven us out of foreign markets. After a long series of aggressions, she consummated her audacity in 1762 by seizing upon the island ; only, however, to be driven out of it in the fol- lowing year. For another century the fishery continued to be a source of contention between the two nations ; but in 1857 the English and French Governments executed a convention by which certain privileges were surrendered and given on both sides, and the French obtained per- mission to cure their fish on the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, with the understanding that they should erect no fortifications. All about the cod-fishery at Newfoundland, we may learn from the elaborate pages of Lacepede, who begins by informing the reader that nets were first employed till it was found that these were liable, not only to be rent A VORACIOUS COD. 63 and shattered, but to be swept away by " ocean-monsters" imprisoned in the mesh-work ; when the fishermen adopted the plan, now universally pursued, of " long-line " fishing. The depths to which these lines are sunk varies with the time of year, being from five to twenty fathoms during the season of shore-fishing, which begins in April ; and from thirty to forty fathoms when the crews follow the fish as they recede from the shore, and continue to take them at these great depths until December, when winter arrests their energy. In spring the traders approach the banks as early as practicable, with the view of securing a good station ; and as soon as the vessels have cast anchor, the surrounding waters literally seem alive with the boats sent out to procure bait. Various kinds are used, but, owing to the voracity of the cod, all succeed; it will swallow not only every kind of fish and shell-fish, whole or in fragments, fresh or salted, but even bits of wood or red cloth. In reference to this voracity, Mr. Badham tells a curious story. A fish, which once on a time furnished the University of Cambridge with a religious feast, was the occasion of a tract entitled Vox Piscis, or the Book Fish, containing three treatises, found in the belly of a cod in Cambridge market, Midsummer Eve, 1626. It is said that this learned fish was caught in Lynn Deeps, and carried to the Vice-Chancellor by the beadle on the discovery of a book within it. As it made its appearance at the Commencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer are expected, it was quaintly remarked that " this sea-guest had brought his book and his car- cass to furnish both." But, as Badham observes, it is to be hoped the learning he brought in his belly was (502) 5 64 " ORDER is HEAVEN'S FIRST LAW." not so out of season as he himself must have been at midsummer ! In spite of the rivalry and contention between the fishing-crews, they all adhere rigidly to certain bye-laws devised for the common good. Among these it is pro- vided that the man who catches fewest fish, a point easily settled by counting the tongues, shall clean the deck, and throw the heads overboard; and to avoid a task so cold and so fatiguing, the tars are all eager to anticipate each other, and to apply themselves as early as may be to the morning's work. No sooner has a fish been hooked and hauled up and sometimes, in his greedi- ness, he is caught by two fishermen at once, when he falls to the lot of him who hooks nearest the eye the captor removes the tongue, and hands him to a second operator (in French, the decolleur), who passes him on to a third. He, cutting open the body, and cleansing it of the liver and intestines, puts him into the hands of the trancheur, that he may remove with his exceedingly sharp knife the ribs and upper part of the vertebrae, and then either split him open from the head to the caudal fin, and dress him a plat ; or else from the gills to the anal fin, a la rond. Next, having been carefully sponged and dried, he is handed over to the salter, who rubs the body with one- sixth of its weight of salt, and then gives it over to the last man, who arranges all the carcasses in rows, and finally packs them in barrels. The first part of these complex operations is described by Lacepede " with the precision of an historian describing the execution of some state prisoner." He says: " L'eteteur saisit d'abord la morue, en place a faux la tete sur le bord de la table, la cerne avec un couteau a IMPORTATIONS OF COD. 65 deux tranchans, nomme couteau a eteter ; quand la morue est decollee, 1'eteteur enleve toutes les entrailles, et ayant fini son operation il pousse le corps & 1'habilleur, qui le saisit de la main gauche et qui tient de la main droite le couteau & lidbilhr, dont les fonctions consistent a 1'ouvrir depuis la gorge jusqu'a 1'anus." All the fish, however, are not salted ; stock-fish are simply dried in the sun, and a considerable quantity are brought to Europe alive in welled vessels. Stock-fish, a name also given to ling and haddock when similarly cured, are so called, either because they are stretched across transverse sticks in the drying, or because they are as hard as a stick, and require to be bastinadoed before they are dressed.* The supplies of cod poured into our British markets we have no means of estimating ; but some years ago a calculation was made of the quantity sold in Billingsgate in the course of a year, which may afford the imaginative reader a starting-point for any computations he may feel inclined to indulge in. Of live cod, it was reckoned that 400,000,- weighing 4,000,000 Ibs., were annually disposed of; of dried salt cod, 1,600,000, weighing 8,000,000 Ibs. ; and of barrelled cod, 15,000 barrels, each containing 40 fish, and weighing in the whole 4,200,000 Ibs. We may assume that these figures have of late been largely ex- ceeded ; and if the reader remembers that extensive sup- plies are sent direct to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Hull, and Liverpool, he will find occasion to marvel at the immense extent and productiveness of the cod-fishery. The wealth of Newfoundland lies in the surrounding * Badham, "Ancient and Modern Fish-Tattle," p. 343. 66 VALUE OF THE FISHERIES. waters, which annually yield rich harvests to its bold and experienced fishermen. Especially do they furnish an apparently inexhaustible resource in their supplies of cod; and, accordingly, the cod-fishery employs the greater num- ber of the population. Some idea of its value may be gained from the fact that the annual average export for the last twenty years has amounted to one million quintals, or hundredweights, realizing fully 900,000. But even these figures do not sufficiently illustrate its extent, for they do not include the quantity about 150,000 quintals used every year in Newfoundland itself, nor the vast haul of the French, Nova Scotians, Canadians, and Americans, who constantly resort to the Newfoundland banks. Pro- bably, the total would in this case rise to 1,650,000 quintals, equal in value to 1,485,000. And then we must add the value of the oil extracted from the liver of the cod-fish, which, estimating the yield at 1,250,000 gal- lons, would be 200,000. Such figures may well astonish the reader ; but his as- tonishment will increase when he is told that, notwith- standing this enormous annual drain a drain which has continued for upwards of two centuries the supply seems inexhaustible ; and that while the whale and seal fisheries have largely declined, while the herring-fishery is subject to considerable variations, the cod-fishery shows no symptoms of diminution, and annually responds with recuperative energy to the demands made upon it. We have already glanced at the various processes em- ployed in the capture of the cod. The Newfoundland fishermen adopt the hook and line, the seine-net, the bultow, and the American trap-net. The seine does not differ from that employed in other FISHING WITH THE SEINE. G7 quarters. It is neither more nor less than a large net, which is flung into the midst of a shoal of fish when op- portunity offers. It can be used only near the shore, or some convenient place for hauling it in. The moment the "finny spoil" is entrapped, both ends of the seine are brought ashore and made fast, and the fishermen haul in the bottom until it touches the ground, so as to enclose the fish completely, and prevent their escape. They are then taken out of the net with all possible speed, split open, salted, and packed in barrels; these operations being effected generally on a kind of stage or platform erected for the purpose, but sometimes in the fishing-boat. The net varies in size from 70 to 120 fathoms long, and from 50 to 100 feet deep, according to the character of the locality in which it is used. An average haul amounts to about 200 quintals ; but in the largest seines, under favourable circumstances, as many as 1000 have been collected. Some experienced fishermen strongly object to the em- ployment of the seine, on the plea that its use in any locality has the effect, after a time, of driving away the fish ; and they point to places formerly celebrated as the haunts of immense shoals which the cod have of late years deserted. But if the cod have been spirited away, it is not perhaps the seine that should be censured, but its accompaniments the noise and motion of the men as they pass to and fro, and the throwing overboard, or from the stage-heads, of the entrails and heads of the fish after they have been split and headed. At all events, the seine is so simple in its use, and so remunerative, that it will not 136 abandoned except under strong legislative compulsion. (iS riii " i;i i i.>\\ " ruot i Til*' NP\\ I'.Min.ll.in.l li-.heimpii. hnXVOVOV, .1 1 P P \ PP.-. h n-'J \ partial to tlio lionk and lino l'li.-\ ilh forth in tluur \voll l>ml( I'.MI .. . -iMM.ilh MI ie\\ . .-I (PII (it (\\pl\p. lu( soiUC i MM.", -.in- l\ Thp I-. M( pinpl.'N .-.I r. 111 I lu (Mi l\ p. M ( of i ion, IIPI i in", i hen , Mp.-l.in. UP\ i i IIP Mpu.l. .ni.l later in the Near lioi i IIP- .. nn l-'i-.li I Im-, p.m--,h( are Mipp M.'l III >|lllll(\ (<> (ll.>',.< .MpllllC.l l'\ (lu> .Clll.' . t.M ll (llP laHi-r :r..\ \\luMi .1 lai'H'O li.inl in nia.l\ iniii-li i>!' ( lir linli till, into .1 von imlitVownl -,MI.IIIUM bofoi^ n own MI. '.I r.li.M,-. ;in.l OOnMO(|U(>Ut>ly, >\ IUMI riiic.l. \\ill I'll.- " l'iil(.\\ " pnuvss >!' li'.lnn- 1 . ni.ix ! (lin-. ilt^HOrilHHi SovtM'ill '.li.Ml pi.\(-. !' Imp .HP .ill.irlip.l (,> ;i KMI-; \\\\c .t( llllPI \ :ll'. .'I I- Mil I.' .M-'Ill Ip.'l l\> (ln-.(> -.Ih'll plPPPS liookN .11,- l.i-.ipnp.l . .in.l \\ltpn (|IPN IIMNP lu-.-n I'.ntp.l. (lip \vlu>lo npparnt'ti*. ^tli.ii r-, dip " l>nl(>\\ "^ r. .hcppp.l into Iho \\alor, and allowed to .siid;. IMip-im? Imp-., \\uli indu-.i(p its pp-.iii,Mi. .iti.l pr,\ idp .1 tpi>!\ nu-iii-. pf (.ikui" s u up \\|UMI \\anlod. On llo ot^lolrttHl NP\\ Ipiuull.ind b.ink-- (lip lul(p\\ [fl .ilnip-.i p \plu-.i \ c\\ .i.lppu-,1. ;inl i( m\.ni.il'U -.I-PUI v; (lie liu.v.l an.l lai .,-, i li-.li \\\ ppinipn i-. pui forwtinl, di.il t' no lanK li-.liin:; \\ PI p pM united i\\c -.lipie I'r.lnn..; \\p-uld l>e unu'h UI.M p pi pfil .il>le . l>u( n\an\ I'r.luM'iupu Pin(pud (!:( (lie (i-.h p.uij-Jit on (\\c 1. inks lo a dilV.MPUl lauulx . .1-- K NN.M,-. I'IPIII llio-.p ,iii"li( on (In* '.lioips. :uid \\onld in no en. dp-.pi( (lipn (rM.lidon.d " fot^liu^ jMound-. " I'lus c. pro Ivd'U IMU-. for duMp P. in l>p no donl>( (lia( (i-.h in dipn hptep of i '\ M-ned l'\ (i\ ( -.l IM\\ s ot ' m-.( me( o v-u-.toni riie(i->lur \\ h leli t'n\pien( (he lauK-. .--> ('ioin .(> up (p THE SUMMER SHORE-FISHERY. 71 American and Canadian being the smallest, and the French the largest. On arriving at the fishing-field they drop anchor, using hemp instead of chain cables, and des- patching their boats to lay down and bait the bultow. The Americans and Canadians, when loaded, proceed to the sea-ports of Nova Scotia or Newfoundland to dis- charge their cargoes, after which they return to the banks, generally making three trips in a season. The French, if they fish on the northern part of the banks, make for that part of the French shore which begins at Cape St. John, the northern headland of Notre Dame Bay ; those fishing further south proceed to the Mique- lon Islands, which, by treaty, were reserved exclusively for the French fishermen. The first appearance of the cod-fish is made early in May, and the fishing season lasts until November, when the shoals pass away into deeper waters for their winter habitat. But on the north-west coast of Newfoundland, and particularly in the vicinity of Cape Kay, the fishery is carried on " all the year round," and even in the winter is of a very profitable character. The summer shore fishery is prosecuted in skiffs, punts, and the so-called " western boats." The punts do not venture far from land ; and as their crew consists only of " a man and a boy," it would not be safe for them to do so. The skiffs are generally decked, well-equipped, and capable of riding out a tolerably severe gale. They carry two to four men. The " westera boats " are manned by seven to twelve veteran " salts," and usually fish with the seine. They belong principally to Conception Bay ; and, as a recent writer informs us, they proceed from the bay to the south and south-west coasts, always bringing 72 " A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE." to their homes their catch when their boat is loaded, and returning again to any place where they may find the best fishing. They prosecute their laborious avocations until the month of July, when, after leaving the fish to be dried and salted by their wives and families, they make all sail for the Labrador coast to join in the herring- fishery. Whether a " life on the ocean wave" is quite so joyful and pleasurable as the poets represent, may well be doubted ; but it is assuredly the life to which these hardy and adventurous fishers devote themselves. It is their custom, we may add, to dispose of the day's catch with undeviating regularity, all hands setting to work to split and salt the fish, and stow them away in the hold. " Car- pe diem " is a motto for which they have a great admira- tion. Cod-fish always " cure" most satisfactorily when split and salted as soon as possible after being caught. Every hour's delay injures their quality. The fish are generally allowed to remain in salt for fully ten days, then washed, and afterwards dried on the beach or on hurdles, small boughs, or sticks. Fish dried on hurdles, or boughs, are always the best, the wind passing freely over and under them, and drying them thoroughly. The wind, it should be observed, is more effectual than the sun as a " desiccating agent ; " and, indeed, in days when the wind is not blowing, the hot sun injures the fish burning it up, and destroying its succulent properties. The fish-curing process is much influenced, therefore, by the weather. With warm, westerly winds it may be finished in a week; often it takes much longer. We have already spoken of the method of extracting the oil, which adds so considerably to the value of the THE NEWFOUNDLAND FLOTILLAS. 73 fish. The common cod-oil of commerce, we may mention here, is obtained from the liver, which, when the fish has been split, is taken out, stowed in puncheons, and ex- posed to the heat of the sun. The oil, as it distils, is drawn off into casks, and sells at about 2s. 6d. to 3s. per gallon. Cod-liver oil, so highly esteemed as a thera- peutic, is procured by a cleaner and more costly process. The livers, after being carefully washed, are subjected to the action of steam or boiling water ; and the oil then given forth is filtered through bags of different textile materials, until it is perfectly clear and free from any extraneous admixture. This oil is worth about 6s. per gallon. An extensive cod-fishery exists along the Labrador coast, and in the month of June a flotilla sails from the Newfoundland bays St. John's, Conception, Trinity, and Bonavista to take part in it. The vessels compris- ing it range from the smack of 30 tons to the schooner of 180 or 200, and the crews necessarily vary in numeri- cal strength. As they frequently take with them their wives and families, it is not uncommon for one of the larger vessels to have as many as two hundred souls on board. Nor are the women and children useless. While the men catch the fish, and split, and wash, the women head, and salt, and dry it. They do not all be- long to one crew. A fishing crew, or gang, or company the reader may choose which term he likes consists, at the most, of nine or ten men, assisted by three or four girls, or it may number only two or three men and one girl. Consequently, several crews or gangs are included in the complement of each vessel. A crew is under the 74 ON THE LABRADOR COAST. direction of a head man, called a " planter," who provides all the supplies necessary for the voyage. His hands are generally sharers in the speculation, and are remunerated by one-sixteenth or one-twelfth of the haul made by the seine-net which is used in the early part of the season and by one-half of the catch, when the hook and line are employed. The planter provides boats, nets, hooks, lines, bait, salt, and provisions, and also defrays the expense of smoking the fish. He gets all the oil, which is con- sidered to pay for the salt, and eleven-twelfths, or there- abouts, of the haul, and one-half of the catch in the boats. He also receives from each fisherman 20s. to 60s. as berth-money. On the other hand, he pays the wages of the boys and girls ; and it seems evident, when his ex- penses and risks are taken into the account, that he does not fare so well as his men. These details we borrow from an interesting article in the Scotsman; and the writer, who is apparently well informed, adds that the sharemen often make consider- able wages, as much as .73 in some seasons, and sel- dom less than 35. The men engaged to split and salt the fish receive from .18 to 27, and their foreman if the post is not taken by the planter himself from 28 to 40. The old men and boys are paid from 12 to 18, and the girls from 4 to 10 ; the period of service extending from early in June until the 31st of October. The Labrador cod-fish is not equal in quality to that caught in the Newfoundland waters. It does not cure so hard, and is less nutritious; hence its price is from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per cwt. under that of the Newfoundland cod. Many of the fishermen of Trinity, Bonavista, and Notre Dame bays, carry on the Newfoundland shore-fishing DISPOSAL OF THE SPOILS. 75 until July, and then sail for the Labrador coast, where the spoil is most abundant in the fall of the year. These men preserve their catch in salt, and bring it home to be washed, dried, and cured. Towards the end of October, when the dark shadows of approaching winter rapidly gather over the sombre "Labrador coast, and the huge ice-fields accumulate in the northern waters, the fishing-fleets forsake their stations, and steer for the various harbours of Newfoundland to which they belong. From Labrador a great quantity of fish is exported to the European markets, according to the demand. The "hard dry cured" goes to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and other parts of the Mediterranean basin ; the softer and rich "full fish" to England and Scotland. The fish not thus got rid of, and the cod-oil, are brought to Newfound- land, where they are sold to the merchants, and shipped off at favourable opportunities. Most of the medium -sized and best-cured fish is sent to Brazil in " drums," each containing 128 Ibs. To the West India Islands and Demerara it is despatched in large casks, each containing 480 Ibs., or in "drums" of the same weight as those sent to Brazil. To British and European ports the fish is shipped " in bulk." and makes a "good, safe, and buoyant cargo." A considerable stock of fish is kept in hand until after the close of the year, and then exported to Roman Catholic countries, so as to reach the markets before the Lenten season begins, when the demand is necessarily very active. Thus the Roman Catholic custom of eating salt fish in Lent proves a source of profit to the Protestant fisher-folk of Newfoundland. 76 THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES. Fish-cargoes vary greatly in extent, according to the burden of the vessels employed in the trade. To Brazil they range from 2400 to 3500 drums ; to the West Indies from 350 to 600 casks ; to England and Spain, and the Mediterranean ports, from 2500 to 5000 quintals. Nearly all the cod-liver oil finds a market in England. The fish and fish products exported from Newfound- land in 1873 were of the value of 7,569,497 dollars, or, in round numbers, XI, 5 15, 000. We are referring here to their value in Newfoundland ; their value in foreign markets it is difficult to estimate, from the great differ- ences existing in price, and the variations of the demand ; but allowing that the trader was content with a profit of one-fifth, the total realized would be 1,800,000. Pro- bably it is no exaggeration to say, if we include the local consumption, and the captures of the French and American fishermen, that the Newfoundland fisheries add to the wealth of the civilized nations engaging in them an annual sum of 3,000,000. We have omitted to mention a portion of the cod-fish which figures in the island's exports namely, "cod- roes." What, the reader will ask, can be made of these 1 We answer : the roe is pickled, barrelled, and exported almost entirely to France, where it is in great demand for ground- bait in the sardine-fishery. Here a digression is neces- sary. We shall have to speak of sardines in due course, but we may record that no fewer than 13,000 boats on the coast of Brittany are employed in the capture of sprats, young herrings, and young pilchards, which are duly cured and tin-cased as sardines. It is estimated that 10,000,000 of the well-known hermetically sealed tin boxes are annually sent from Brittany to all parts of NORWAY AND THE FAROE ISLES. 77 the world. This fact will enable the reader to form a conception of the vast quantity of cod-roe required as bait for the immense number of so-called sardines these boxes must contain; and he will not be surprised to hear that the French expend a yearly sum of .80,000 in its purchase. It is a curious reflection, that the sardines we discuss with so much relish at our breakfast-table, in London or Edinburgh, were caught off the romantic coast of Brittany with cod-roe bait brought from the shores of Newfoundland !* The cod-fisheries of Norway are very extensive. The Loffoden Islands, in the winter, are the centre of a really important campaign, vigorously carried on by the stal- wart descendants of the Norsemen against the ill-fated Gadidse. Upwards of 3000 boats and 16,000 men are engaged, and the produce reaches nearly 20,000,000 of cod-fish a large proportion of which are despatched to the British markets. On the coast of Faroe an important cod-fishery has been thriving for many years, and the Shetlanders alone send thither a fleet of between fifty and sixty smacks and schooners ; well-formed boats, built and equipped on the most improved principles, and manned by no unworthy descendants of the old Norse Yikingir. Each smack carries a crew of about fourteen men ; so that the Faroe fishery employs about seven hundred and fifty Shetland seamen, besides a large number of men, women, and boys profitably engaged in curing the fish at home. The fish- * A considerable portion of the roe thus used is imported, however, from Norway. 78 THE SHETLAND FISHERMEN. ing-season begins early in April, and ends about the middle of August ; during which time each vessel gene- rally accomplishes three trips to Faroe. The fishing- ground is either "on the coast," that is, in the bays, and in the channels which intersect the archipelago, or " on the bank," a famous resort for cod, about sixty miles south-west of Faroe. This bank is about forty- five miles long by thirty broad. The fish are caught on " hand-lines," of two hooks each, baited with various kinds of shell-fish. The " buckies," as those chiefly in use are called, are dredged before the smacks leave Shetland, and preserved alive in small perforated boxes, hung alongside the boat, or at all events kept in a position that allows the free passage of salt- water. Some of the smacks, however, are furnished with wells, which has been found a capital arrangement for keeping the " buckies " in good condition, as well as for carrying the cod alive to market. But Dr. Cowie states that it is only on rare occasions, as at the end of a season, when there are other reasons for sending a welled smack to a southern port, that live cod are sold. " The ordi- nary practice is to gut, split, and wash the cod as they are caught, and stow them in the hold amongst salt. They are further cleaned, scrubbed, pressed, and ulti- mately dried on the beach, after the smacks return home." We are inclined to believe, however, that a greater preference is every year being given to welled smacks, and that the quantity of live cod sent to the markets is constantly on the increase. There are three kinds of fisheries pursued by the hardy Slietlanders : the deep sea or ha'ag, to which we are now alluding, the coast, and the herring, the last being al- THE SHETLAND FISHERMEN. < 9 most entirely in the hands of Dutch vessels. As for the coast fishery, it lasts throughout the year. But the great nnd all-important fishery is that which centres in the cod. We need not repeat the details already given, but some account seems desirable of the fishery carried on at a distance of from twenty to forty miles from the Shetland coast. The boats engaged in it are not so large as those which fish off Faroe. They are Norway yawls, with eighteen feet of keel and six feet beam, and manned by no more than six men. Each has between seven and eight miles of line and one thousand hooks. The lines are set in the evening ; and if the first haul is not success- ful, they are generally baited again, and a second venture is made. Sometimes the men remain out for a couple of nights living upon oat-cakes and water, or, occasionally, on fish and potatoes. When the fish are brought to shore, they are handed to the curer, who weighs and keeps an account of the spoil. Then they are split up and boned ; washed in sea-water ; and put into a vat, with alternate layers of salt. After a couple of days they are taken out, washed a second time, and piled into stacks for a day or two. Next they are spread out on the open beach until thoroughly dry, after which they are stored up in air- tight sheds, to be shipped for market when opportunity offers. These light yawls are ill-fitted to brave a heavy storm, and therefore seldom a season passes without some sad tale of disaster. And when a boat is lost, the calamity is all the more severe because its crew are usually members of the same family. Ah, little do we " who sit at home at ease " think of the suffering experienced and the peril (502) G 80 ABOUT THE HADDOCK. confronted by the brave men who go down to the deep in ships ! The HADDOCK (Gadus, or Morrhua ^Eglefinus) enters more largely into general consumption, perhaps, than even the cod, and its flesh is more digestible, more nutritious, and of far superior flavour. It is what we should call a sociable or cosmopolitan fish, for it figures on the table of the artisan or peasant as well as on the splendid board of the wealthy Apicius ; and it is as abundant in Ameri- can as in European waters. Observe, however, that it keeps to high latitudes, and is found neither in the Baltic nor the Mediterranean. It frequents our British coasts in immense numbers, though different species appear at different points, and all are not of equal excellence. Those caught on the east coast and in Dublin Bay bear away the prize for " good eating." Owing to over-fishing, the haddock is not found so near the shore as of old, but vast shoals still inhabit the deep waters, and are caught both by trawl-nets and lines. The haddock, like the cod, has three dorsal and two anal fins, and a bar- bule at the point of the lower jaw. It is brown on the back, silver-white on the belly ; the lateral line is black, THE HADDOCK. and behind each of the pectorals is a black spot, the two sometimes extend- ing so far as to meet on the back. An absurd legend attributes these spots to the finger and thumb with which " FINNAN HADDIES." 81 St. Peter held the fish when he took from its mouth the tribute-money ; as if a marine fish, like the haddock, would be found in the fresh-water lake of Gennesaret ! Formerly it was believed of the haddock, as of the herring, that it was a migratory fish, which appeared periodically in immense shoals about mid- winter j but it is now known that it frequents certain localities in the deep waters, and draws nearer the coast at the approach of its spawning-season. It is said, but we cannot ascer- tain on what ground, that in stormy weather it refuses every kind of bait, and retires for shelter among the marine plants of the ocean-bed in its deepest parts. The haddock is not a large fish : its usual weight is about five pounds. Enormous quantities are converted into " Finnan haddies," a luxury of the breakfast- table which is popular in every civilized country. Genuine Finnans, however, that is, haddocks smoked by 'means of peat-reek, are, unhappily, limited in number, and the British householder is compelled to feast upon inferior, but, sooth to say, very palatable imitations. To make the trade a profitable one, says Mr. Bertram, they are cured by the hundred in smoking-houses built for the purpose, and are smoked by burning wood or sawdust which, however, does not give them the proper gout. In fact, the wood-smoked Finnans, except that they are fish, have no more the genuine flavour than Scotch marmalade would have if it were made from turnips in- stead of bitter oranges. Fifty years ago it was different ; then the haddocks were smoked in small quantities in the fishing villages between Aberdeen and Stonehaven, and entirely over a peat fire. To the peat-reek they owed the peculiar flavour which secured their popularity. The 82 A BREAKFAST DAINTY. fisher-wives along the north-east coast used to pack small quantities of these delicately cured fish into a basket, and give them to the guard of the "Defiance" coach, which ran between Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and the guard brought them to town, confiding them for sale to a brother who dealt in provisions \ and it is known that out of the various transactions which thus arose, individually small though they must have been, the two made, in the course of time, a handsome profit. The fame of the smoked fish spread far and wide; so that cargoes came to be despatched by steam-boat ; and now the much-coveted edibles are carried by railway to all parts of the country, the demand being so great that, in order to meet it, almost any kind of fish is substituted for the original haddie, and various devices are adopted to imitate the colour and flavour. Good smoked haddocks of the Moray Firth or Aberdeen cure cannot be obtained' at the present time, even in Edinburgh, under the price of sixpence per pound.* The Finnan haddock obtains its distinctive name from Findon or Finnan, a small fishing-village in the parish of Banchory-Devenick, about six miles to the south of Aberdeen. Here the curing process was first adopted, or else was executed so dexterously as to secure a special celebrity for the fish sent out for sale from this port. At the magnificent coronation-feast of Katherine of Valois, celebrated on the 24th of February 1420-21, a feast which, according to Fabyan, was " all of fish, for, Lent being entered upon, nothing of meat was there, saving brawn served with mustard," figured stewed eels, and bream of the sea, and crayfish, lampreys, roasted * Bertram, " Harvest of the Sea," p. 290. ABOUT THE WHITING. 83 porpoises, carp, turbot, tench, and, before all and above all in delicacy and digestibility, whiting. The WHITING (Merlangus vulgaris), which well deserved to adorn a royal banquet, is one of the most valuable of the Gadidse, and, fortunately for English fish con- noisseurs, it abounds on our British coasts. Not much, however, is known of its natural history. It deposits its 84 THE COAL-FISH AND THE POLLACK. spawn in March, and the eggs appear to occupy about forty days in hatching. The whiting differs from its congeners in having no barbule on the nether jaw, and in its slenderer form, which adapts it for the swift pursuit of its prey at a greater elevation from the sea-bottom. Its head and body are compressed ; the deepest part is at the vent, which is opposite the middle of the first dorsal fin ; the upper jaw projects slightly beyond the lower ; both jaws have long sharp teeth, and there is a triangular set of teeth on the palate. The scales are small. There are three dorsal and two anal fins. On the back the colour is a uniform dusky yellow, paling on the sides ; the belly is silvery white, to which circumstance, or to the deli- cate whiteness of the flesh, is due the name of the fish, whiting. To the same genus as the whiting belong the CoAL-FiSH and the POLLACK. The former (Gadus carbonarius) is nearly black on the upper parts of the body. It attains the length of two or three feet, and is remarkable for its voracity ; is rather coarse as food, but is much used in northern countries both fresh and salted, or dried. It abounds on the British coasts. In Scotland it is known as the sethe or saithe, and its fry as podleys, sittocks, and cuddies. We have caught them in large quantities in the western lochs, from August down to November, using the rod and almost any kind of bait. They are scarcely worth the trouble, however ; but the fishermen take them for the sake of the oil obtainable from the liver. The Pollack (Merlangus pollachius), known in Scotland as the lythe, is far superior in flavour to the coal-fish, ABOUT THE HAKE. 85 especially if caught young. It is readily taken with artificial flies, the best being a bit of white worsted or a white feather tied to a common bait-hook. It has a longish body, a long under jaw, a forked tail, and three dorsal fins. We have no space to descant on the LING (Lotu molva), another of the Gadidse, which is highly valued both fresh and salted ; * or the DORSE (Morrhua callarias) ; or the BIB or POUT (Morrhua Insect)', nor is it necessary, since their characteristics differ little from those of the cod, and they are captured by the same means. But we must de- vote a few lines to the HAKE (Merlucius vulgaris), if it be only to express our regret that so valuable a fish is not better known, or, at all events, better appreciated. It is a denizen of our British seas; and fine specimens are caught off the Devonshire coast, where, from the havoc it accomplishes among the herrings and pilchards, it is called the " herring hake." It is generally taken by lines or by trawling, and is frequently dried and salted under the general name of " stock-fish." The hake has no barbules, but carries two dorsal fins and one anal. It is sometimes identified with the ancient sea-fish asellus that is, the donkey-fish, of which Pliny and ^Elian record such wonderful stories; but, more probably, the sea- tench (Phycis Mediterranea) should have that honour. The hake, like all the Gadidse, is gregarious. His greediness is excessive, and he will demolish a dozen clupeans, or a young codling, or one of his own kind, in an incredibly short period. He is found in the Mediter- * The burbot, or coxey-flsh, is a fresh-water ling. 86 PLEURONECTS, OR FLAT-FISH. ranean, and figures conspicuously in the fish -markets of Naples, and in Irish waters he appears in immense shoals. Gal way Bay is called the " Bay of Hakes." In Mount Bay, Cornwall, forty thousand have been caught in a night. We now pass to the Pleuronectidce, or flat-fish. These consist of two distinct classes : in one, as in the skate, the body is flattened downwards or vertically ; in the other, as in turbot, plaice, sole, flounder, it is compressed from side to side. They are designated Pleuronects, or side-swimmers, because they usually move through the water on one of their flat sides. The genera are numerous, and these are unequally distributed in different parts of the globe, and in greater or less variety, according to the latitudes, diminishing towards the north. In. England, according to Yarrell, there are sixteen species ; in the parallel of Jutland and the islands at the mouth of the Baltic, thirteen ; on the coast of Norway, the number is reduced to ten ; at Iceland, to five ; whilst Greenland possesses three species only. We shall give, in our description of the Pleuronects, the first place to the regal TURBOT (Rhombus maximus), which has always enjoyed a distinguished gastronomic reputa- tion. Need we describe it ? Is there any one ignorant of its peculiar appearance ? Will not all our readers be aware that it has (as, in truth, its Latin appellation signifies) a rhomboidal body, with a dorsal fin commencing immediately above the upper lip, and stretching almost to the tail-fin ? THE TURBOT-FISHERY. 89 Do they not know that its eyes are generally on the left side ? a peculiarity which, however, does not seem to in- convenience it. It is not an elegant fish, judged by the usual laws of harmonious proportions ; but then its flesh is so delicious, that the epicure readily pardons its deficiency in this respect ! It attains a considerable size, in fact, an aldermanic size, very appropriate in a fish so much esteemed at aldermanic banquets ; frequently it weighs seventy, eighty, or ninety pounds. On our English and Scottish coasts it is very plentiful our markets being largely supplied from the sand-banks lying between our eastern shores and Holland. It is also known in the seas of Greece and Italy. The Dutch turbot- fishery begins about the end of March, a few leagues to the south of Scheveling. As the season advances the fish proceed northwards, and in April and May are found in great shoals on the banks called the Broad Forties. Early in June they swarm around the crumbling shores of Heligoland, where the fishery continues to the middle of August, and then terminates for the year. At the beginning of the season the trawl- net is principally used ; but on the occurrence of warm weather the fish retire to deeper water, and the fisher- men must then have recourse to the line. The turbot was well known to, and highly valued by, the ancients, who thought their banquets incomplete un- less it " smoked upon the board." Horace alludes to its size and costliness : " Grandes rhombi patinaeque Grande ferunt una cum damno dedecus." " Great turbots and late suppers lead To debt, disgrace, and abject need." 90 ABOUT THE SOLE. And we read of one purchased by the Emperor Domi- tian, the size of which almost defied the skill of the im- perial cooks ; they did not know how to dish it up ! The reputation enjoyed by the SOLE (Solea) is well deserved, for its flesh is succulent, savoury, and easily digested. Moreover, it is available for the bill of fare throughout the year, except for five or six weeks in February and March, its spawning-time. It is of an oblong form, with a rounded muzzle, WHERE SOLES ARE POUND. 91 which almost always projects beyond the mouth ; the said mouth being twisted to the side opposite to that on which the eyes are situated namely, the right ; though, by the way, individuals are occasionally found with both eyes and mouth on the left. The teeth are very small in both jaws ; there are pectoral fins on each side ; the dorsal and anal fins extend to the tail, but do not join the tail- fins. The common sole inhabits all the European seas, except the most northern. Its average weight is one and a half to two pounds, but some individuals bulk to five, seven, and even nine pounds. The upper side of the body is of an almost uniform dark brown ; the under part, white. It is a ground fish, and therefore caught by trawling. It frequents the sandy bottoms round the coast, feeding 011 the smaller Crustacea, and on the spawn and young of various kinds of fish. Soles have a very extensive range. You may take them at the Cape of Good Hope ; in the seas of Japan ; off the coast of North America ; and in the Mediterranean. And though sea-fish by birth, they will live and wax fat in fresh water, frequently ascending rivers to a consider- able height. They were well known and equally well appreciated in days of old. According to the Greeks, they made suitable sandals for the ocean nymphs, who, when thus shod, had certainly soles to their feet. One of the epigrammatists, describing a banquet, says the slaves Served up those slippers of the foamy sea Which agile Nereids, sent on errands fleet, Apply protecting to their tender feet. Eai/SaAa 6' av Trape^xev aeiyej/?) aQo.va.rawv' JPouyAwcro-oi', 05 eyatev ei> aA/ij) /uop/uupouafl." 92 BRILL AND PLAICE. And it would seem that the ancient cooks, like the modern, fried them : "The cook brought forth upon a spacious dish Hot frizzled soles those all-surpassing fish Skilfully browned, and wafting through the room, While sputtering still, their rare and rich perfume." They were also served under the name citharus in an appetizing sauce. They figured as one of the side-dishes at Hebe's nuptials; an amateur, "cithari sciens," sings their praises cooked in a compost of cheese and oil, when they are exquisite, etcrtv aKoXacrroL ; and Archestratus, in his poem on " Good Cheer " (Hedypathy), says, to the same purpose, they can hardly be served too elaborately.* BRILL (Rhombus vulgaris), which we ought to have mentioned in connection with its cousin-german, turbot, is, like the sole, in season all the year round. It resembles the turbot in appearance, but is not so broad, has a soft dorsal fin, is of a reddish sandy-brown colour on the upper part, and seldom exceeds eight pounds in weight. Though often passed off upon the unwary for turbot, it is far inferior in flavour. It is said that in London alone upwards of 35,000,000 of plaice are sold every year. PLAICE (Platessa vulgaris), a species of flounder, is a broad flat fish, found on sandy and muddy banks on most parts of the British coasts, as well as on those of continental Europe. It feeds on worms, molluscs, small crustaceans, and young fishes ; attains an average weight of five to seven pounds ; and is taken both by trawl-nets and lines. The upper part of the * Badham, "Ancient and Modern Fish-Tattle," p. 366. ABOUT THE FLOUNDER. 95 body and the fins are of an olive-brown colour, marked with numerous large bright spots of orange. The FLOUNDER (Platessa flesus) is readily distinguished from the plaice by a row of small tubercles on each side of the lateral line. Its greatest breadth, excluding the fins, is about one-third of its whole length. It is found in comparatively shallow water, with muddy or sandy bottom, on our own shores, and on the coast of almost all Europe ; thriving equally well in perfectly salt, brackish, or perfectly fresh water. In Sweden it is known by the name of flundra ; in Scotland, by that of fleuk, or fluke. He is a greedy and audacious fish, and the best time for taking him is at early dawn, when he prowls about in quest of a morning meal : " He that intends a flounder to surprise, Must start betimes and fish before sunrise." Franks, quoted by Badham, says of the Flesi : " These fish are bold as buccaneers, of much more confidence than caution, and so fond of a worm that they will go to the banquet though they die at the board : they are endowed with great resolution, and struggle stoutly for the victory when hooked; they are also more than ordinarily difficult to deal with by reason of their build, which is altogether flat, as if it were a level. The flounder, I must further tell you, delights to dwell among stones ; besides, he is a great admirer of deeps and ruinous decays, yet as fond as any fish of moderate streams ; and none beyond him, except the perch, that is more solicitous to rifle into ruins, inso- much that a man would fancy him an antiquary, con- sidering he is so affected with reliques." (502) 7 96 THE DAB AND THE HALIBUT. The DAB (Platessa limanda) is of the same genus. It may be distinguished from the plaice and flounder by its more uniform and lighter brown col- our, its rougher scales, and the greater curvature of the lateral line. The fishermen on the Fife coast call it the " salt-water ., Hl! ~B. fluke." It is found on all the sandy parts of our coasts, but in deep water ; and it never ascends the rivers. There are five species. The HALIBUT or HOLTBUT (Hippoglossus vulgaris), one of the largest kinds of Pleuronects, abounds in the northern seas of Europe (except the Baltic) and America, and is plentiful in British waters. It is a bold, strong fish, and requires good tackle to hold it. Individuals have been captured measuring nearly eight feet in length, but we ourselves have never seen them exceeding five feet ; and of these the flesh is coarse, and, we should think, not nutritious. The Greenlanders, who have stronger stomachs (ilia dura) than Britons, value the halibut exceedingly. They embark in their light kajacks, and spear them with great dexterity; or fish with hook and line, after the fashion described by Crantz : " At certain seasons the Greenlanders catch great numbers with large fish-hooks, fastened to whalebone * Crantz, "History of Greenland," i. 92, 93. THE GREENLAND HALIBUT-FISHERY. 99 or sea-gut thongs from a hundred to a hundred and twenty fathoms in length ; the largest are four feet and a half to six feet in length, about half as broad, and a full span thick ; they weigh from a hundred to two hundred pounds and upwards." The Norwegian halibuts are said to be so large that a single one, when salted, can- not be contained in a barrel. They have a smooth skin, white below, and speckled with dark gray on the back ; the eyes are larger than those of the ox, and furnished with a kind of eyelid ; the mouth is not ]arge, but has a double row of sharp teeth, bent inwards. In the gullet are two pointed gills, besides those in the mouth. Close to the head two small pectoral fins are inserted ; and two longitudinal fins descend from head to tail. The pecu- liarity of this genus is, that one side appears to represent the back, and the opposite side the abdomen. Both the eyes are always situated on one side of the head ; some species having them on the right, others on the left side. They swim laterally, with that side in which the eyes are seated uppermost. Their principal food is crabs, and on that account they generally reside in deep water. Their Hesh is coarse and lean, but white and well-tasted, and has a large quantity of delicate fat, especially under the fins. " Of this fat," says Crantz, " the inhabitants of the north make raf which is cured by smoke ; and they cut the lean flesh into long slices, which they dry in the air, and eat raw; and this they call rebel. The remainder is salted, and laid up for winter. The Greenlanders, how- ever, cut the whole into small slips, and dry them in the sun." CHAPTER III. THE SCOMBERIDJi:. JIN" connection with our food-supplies, it may be assumed that the Scomberidce family among fishes rank next in value and importance to the Gadidse and Clupeidse. They belong to the sub-order Acanthopteri, in the great order of the Teleostei ; an order which includes the larger majority of fishes popularly so called that is, fishes with a well- ossified internal or endo-skeleton. The Scomberidae are all distinguished by the smooth- ness of their body, which is covered generally with small scales, and often very richly and brilliantly coloured ; by the largeness of the tail-fin, and the power-fulness and muscularity of the tail. The sides of the tail, it should be remarked, are frequently carinated, or keeled, and armed with sharp-keeled scales. The front spines of the anal fin are usually detached, and sometimes those of the first dorsal fin ; while the second dorsal fin is often re- presented by numerous finlets, as in the mackerel. To the Scomberidae, which are all marine, belong the tunny, the mackerel, the sword-fish, the bonito, the alba- core, and the seir-fish. We shall attempt a brief descrip- ABOUT THE TUNNY. 101 tion of them, and of the methods adopted for their cap- ture, in the order in which they are here put forward. The TUNNY (Scomber thynnus) has been called the "fish of many names ; " an appellation it will be considered to have deserved by readers familiar with the old zoologists, who designated it, according to their individual fancies, thynnis, pelamys, sarda, auxis, xanthias, triton, thusites, ckeladonias, melandrya, synodon, and the like. Its now THE TUNNY. accepted name of " tuimy " comes from the Greek through the Latin tkynnus, and may be traced to the verb 6vw, "to bound furiously;" in allusion, perhaps, to the violent motions of the fish when persecuted by its parasite, the marine oestrus, a kind of bot-fly, or parasitical insect. The tunny is distinguished from the mackerel by the following characteristics : Its first dorsal fin continues to its second, while in the mackerel an interval occurs be- 102 SOME FAMOUS TUNNIES. tween the two ; further, it is of considerably larger size ; and, finally, its body is fashioned like a wedge. There are some noble fellows among the tunnies ! Aldrovandi records the particulars of a monster which measured thirty- two feet in length, and sixteen feet in girth at its broadest part ! We may be pardoned a little scepticism in reference to this colossal scomber : but Pennant speaks of one, caught off the coast of Inveraray, which weighed a hundred and forty pounds ; and Atti positively affirms that specimens have been caught of eighteen hundred pounds weight. Those weighing a hundred pounds are called by the Sicilians scamperri ; their mezzo tunno, or half-tunny, varies from one hundred to three hundred pounds. For the table, how- ever, your fish should not exceed twenty to thirty pounds ; otherwise, what you gain in quantity you lose in quality. Galen, a good authority, includes amongst fish of hard fibre whales, dolphins, seals, and large old tunnies ; and pronounces the last as almost equal to either of the others in indigestibility, though he acknowledges its greater palatableness. But tunny varies in flavour according to the locality in which it is caught. The best is found off the coasts of Sicily and Provence, though the principal tunny-fisheries of the ancients were carried on at Byzan- tium and off the shores of Spain. Archestratus, a Greek epicure of renown, who travelled over the world " for his stomach's sake," has left it upon record, to benefit pos- terity, that the tunny of Constantinople, Carystium, and Sicily are not to be despised, though those of Hippo- nium, in Italy, are superior in merit ; while he has pane- gyrized the Samian specimens as ineffably good, and only fit to be put upon Jupiter's table, or his own.* * Badham, "Ancient and Modern Fish-Tattle," p. 206. AN ANCIENT RECIPE. 103 Among the ancients, the part of the fish most relished was the belly; and, from a Greek epigram, it would seem to have fetched a very high price : " Bass, conger's head, and tunny's under side, Are luxuries to slender means denied." Athenaeus recommends it ev /ATTTTODTCO that is, stufled with onions, and some other of the more acrid condi- ments, to which, for indigestibility, our goose and onions must be a light dish. The Ligurians, says Jovius, as quoted by Badham, eat it under the name of " azemi- num," stewed in oil and Corsican wine, with pounded pepper and chopped onion ; a capital recipe, if there were not too many known already, for nightmare. " All the carcass was salted and pickled, and sold under various names. The best part for pickling was the belly, already mentioned as the best part fresh. The next in esteem was the ' omotarichum/ or pickled shoulder ; lastly came the dry parts, ' cybias, melandrias and urseas : ? the first and last were lumps, generally in cubes, cut out of the back or tail ; the other, yet served in oil by dirty stewards on board Mediterranean steamers," may be described as " like veneers of mahogany in appearance, and tasteless as any wood." The tunny is a handsome fish in appearance ; its back is of a deep lustrous blue, like the tint of polished steel ; its belly flashes all over with silvery gleams. It is very voracious in its habits ; particularly partial to sardines, pilchards, and mackerel ; not sparing even its own species the cannibal ! But, by a just law of compensation, it is not spared in its turn by the shark or the sword-fish, to say nothing of its prime enemy, Man. 104 SUPPOSED MIGRATIONS OF THE TUNNY. From a very early time, tunny-fishing has been a source of wealth to the riverine peoples of the Mediterranean. It was esteemed so important in its influence on the national interests, that the Greeks, before embarking in it, endea- voured to secure the good- will of their deities. They offered a tunny as a sacrifice to Neptune, imploring him to preserve them from the disastrous "joint-stock operations" of the sword-fish ; and if the expedition proved success- ful, they renewed the sacrifice as a token of their grati- tude. It must be admitted, however, that a couple of fishes was hardly enough to bribe the favour of Poseidon. Naturalists formerly believed in the migrations of the tunny, as they did of the herring. It was asserted that the shoals which teem in the Mediterranean entered its waters in the spring season through the Strait of Gib- raltar; that then they divided into two great bodies, one of which followed the coast-line of Africa, and ascended as far as the Bosphorus the other skirting the shores of Spain, France, and North-western Italy, passing between the islands of Elba and Corsica, and halting in the waters of Sardinia to deposit their spawn. These migrations, however, were absolutely imaginary. It is now known that the tunny always inhabits the same region, simply changing its position according to the season of the year now advancing towards the coast, and now retiring into deep water. The ancients resorted to various devices for the capture of this famous fish. One way, and a very direct one, was, according to Aristotle, to spear it as it basked, like a pike, on the sunny surface of the waves. Another, which Oppian describes as practised by the Thracians, PROFITING BY STUPIDITY. 105 consisted in piercing the fish, as they lay in their winter mud-baths at the bottom of the Euxine, with a short, thick, leaded log, armed on the under side with a com- plete arsenal of barbed and serrated spear-heads. This formidable weapon was slung by a long rope to the bow of the boat, whence it was hurled headlong, causing ter- rible execution among the unsuspecting tunny. " Swift through the gloomy regions of the bay, The leaded engine lights upon its prey ; And soon a hundred barbs, in galling chains, As many victims -hold in writhing pains." The tunny is noted for its timidity. It is also exceed- ingly stupid ; a feeling due, we suppose, to its small brain, which does not exceed 3-7^ of its total bulk. The slightest noise in the water will so fluster and confound a whole shoal, as to drive them headlong into the fisher- men's snares. Taking advantage of this intellectual de- fect or idiosyncrasy, the ancients, under cover of a dark night, would row with muffled oars to the spot where the fish were suspected to be lying. There, a vast apparatus of mesh-work was run out silently, and the crew pulled vigorously to one side, until they got in the rear of the shoal. Then, what a clamour arose ! How they yelled and shouted ! How they beat the waters with their oars, and filled the air with a chaos of discordant sounds ! Frightened by the phosphorescent gleam on the surface, and by the din and clash echoing all around, away dashed the timid fish in the direction of the net, in whose open abysses they took refuge as in a secure asylum ! The clatter being constantly kept up, they made no attempt to leave their dangerous retreat ; and the crew, rowing towards the shore, carefully and dexterously towed the 106 TUNNY-FISHING IN OLDEN TIMES. net behind them, and generally had good cause to rejoice over a splendid harvest. ^Elian describes another method of tunny-capture. Some time, he says, before the shoals make their ap- pearance, the men assemble at various Ovwoo-KOTrela, or tunneries ; select the most experienced of their number to the office of thynnoscopus, or tunny-overseer, and build for him a watch-tower, or station him on a commanding rocky headland. No sooner does his practised eye discern the advancing column, than he signalizes to the watchful crew below the direction in which they are to prepare for its reception. As they recognize the signal, with " all the precision of a troop of disciplined soldiers, or a band of well-trained musicians," the mariners put to sea, each boat in command of its captain j and with great regularity and swiftness they shoot their nets in advance of the fish. In this way a vast hempen wall is flung athwart the course of the shoal, which, proceeding in a direct line, and never looking before they leap, are surrounded and captured. Now-a-days, tunny-fishing is carried on both with the line and the net. Little is done in the former way ; in the latter, the practice varies among the French and Neapo- litan fishermen. For instance, there is the tonnaire, which may be thus described : As soon as the look-out men announce the approach of the tunnies, a flotilla of boats traverses the sea in the form of a semicircle, and, throwing out their nets, gradu- ally make for the shore, contracting the area enclosed by the nets as they advance, and, consequently, driving the shoal in front of them. When close to the land, and in MODERN TUNNY-FISHING. 107 shallow water, they spread out an immense net, closed at one end ; in this they imprison the frightened, strug- gling, drifting tunnies, and pour them out in shining 3 lost s upon the beach, where they are straightway killed. TUNNY-FISHING A LA TONNALRE. In this way no fewer than two thousand to three thou- sand quintals are caught at a single haul. The tonnaire, as it is called, is in vogue upon the coasts of Provence, and, to some extent, in Calabria and Sicily. The more complicated process of the madrague is, however, more generally practised ; and, as Duhainel says, no other combination of meshes can convey such an idea of human ingenuity and skill in the "retiary art" as this. So enormous is the quantity of fish it sometimes secures, that in the archives of the active little fishing-town of Couil- loure is preserved the registration of a single- night's spoil namely, one hundred and sixty thousand tunny, each of an average weight of 25 Ibs., but many reaching 120 Ibs. The madrague is, in fact, a vast floating decoy, permanent, 108 THE MADRAGUE DESCRIBED. and always available for use. By means of nets deeply sunken with heavy stones, a number of compartments or chambers is constructed in the sea, and connected with the shore by a long broad avenue, of a quarter to half a mile in length, formed by the shore on one side and a parallel line of nets on the other. The fish unwittingly sailing along this avenue find themselves " brought up " at the extremity of a barrier of mesh-work. They turn to the left, or right, as the case may be, and pass into the first chamber ; from this, as their numbers increase, they are necessarily forced through its single opening into a second enclosure ; and so, on and on they find themselves compelled to move, until at the end of the labyrinth they plunge into what is called the " chamber of death " (camera della morte), a compartment with a meshed bottom, which, like the mezzanine floor of a theatre, can be raised at will, and when it is raised brings with it to the surface a host of unfortunate victims. In vain do they seek to escape from the indiscriminate massacre ; they perish by hundreds. From the reports of independent observers, we gather that there is something singularly exciting in witnessing the wholesale capture of a herd of these great black fish ; more particularly as the Provencals and Neapolitans re- gard the occasion as a festival, and come out in their gay- est attire and with their brightest looks ; while musicians always attend, and mingle their merry strains with the shouts of the eager fishermen and the applause of the im- pulsive spectators. The following minute description of a day's tunny-fishing may, therefore, interest the reader : * Quatrefages, "Journal of a Naturalist;" Badham, " Ancient and Modern Fish-Tattle." See also Lace"pSde. TUNNY-FISHING IN SICILY. 109 It is early morning ; the morning of a bright, glow- ing August day, whose lustre falls freshly on the blue waters of the Bay of Palermo, and the cactus-crowned heights of Monte Pellegrino. We enter our baccarole, and push forward to the tonnaro, where the madrague lies, about a mile from shore. All is calm, smooth, and brilliant to seaward ; and not a ripple vexes the oleagin- ous surface before us, mapped out, like the ground-plan of a new town, with floating corks, which clearly indicate the structure and divisions of the immense decoy. We pull from end to end of the long enclosure to the first sub- marine barrier, and gliding over it, row swiftly, between lines of buoys and floating corks, to the spot whither some boats in advance of our own have been driving a shoal of scared and confused tunnies. " Ecco la camera dell a morte !" exclaim our boatmen, " siamo giunti !" shipping their oars, and staring down into the depths, as if they were bent on seeing what scenes were being enacted in them. But the dark blue waters are impenetrable ; our men resume their oars ; and in a few seconds we bring up alongside one of the two barges which guard the " chamber of death." The other serves as the point d'appui for the nets. These boats are filled, as we see, with a crowd of fisher- men, half naked, with athletic, sinewy limbs, of the colour of bronze, and dark eyes flashing under Phrygian caps of brown or scarlet ; some of them hauling in the sieve-like flooring of the " death chamber," others stand- ing ready, with iron-pointed weapons, to deal destruction among the tunnies as soon as they rise to the surface. But presently a shout is heard : "La pipa, la pipa !" A sword-fish, or pijm, has entered the decoy with the 110 "LA PIPA ! LA PIPA !" miserable shoal, and is now in the net. Haul away, my men, and we shall soon make short work of him ! As the flooring continues to rise, the pipa swims to the sur- face, puzzled by such an unusual movement in the tranquil deep ; and no sooner is he seen than three tre- mendous vociferations welcome him. Frightened by the noise, he darts now in one direction and then in another ; rises to the top, plunges down again ; and, in fact, be- haves like a pipa clean gone out of his senses. Up he comes once more, to escape from the mass of tunnies struggling at the bottom of the net ; makes a swift, sudden sweep around the enclosure to find an opening, and finding none, rushes against the -barrier, and with his long weapon rends the meshes. In vain ; he is now hopelessly entangled in the wreck, and in a minute half a dozen harpoons quiver in his body. He struggles violently in his pain, but blow after blow is rained upon him; the water around is "incarnadined;" and in less time than it takes us to tell the story the great scomber is hauled on board. The shouting grows terrific ; ir- regular, excited, rapid shouting, such as proceeds only from an Italian crowd. "Five scudi, my lads, for our share," ciies one of the leading captors ; and " Bless the Virgin and St. Anthony," exclaims another, " he has done but little damage to the net !" " Now," say our boatmen, " now, signor, we shall pre- sently see the tunny;" and accordingly, as the movable floor of the camera della nwrte comes to within a few feet of the surface, a motley host of large fish, chiefly of the scomber family, all in violent agitation at the unusual sights and sounds, dash and splash about, and beat the waters into foam. The work of slaughter commences, A GREAT CAPTURE. 113 and still the flooring continues to ascend. The entire shoal, or host, of tunnies is discovered. Jostled and pressed one against another, you see these monstrous fish flinging themselves desperately against the sides of the enclosure, exposing their black backs besprinkled with large spots of yellow, or clearing the crimson waters with their great crescent-shaped fins. In their midst a few stray sword-fish leap and tumble like frantic gym- nasts. Intoxicated by the immensity of the spoil before them, the fishermen ply their weapons with the greatest animation, until the spectacle becomes one of indiscrimin- ate butchery. To an English onlooker, less impulsive than the Italians, it ceases to be attractive ; the contest between man and the fish is so obviously unequal. But no relenting weakens the arms of the Sicilian fishermen. Victim after victim falls under their blows, and is hauled on board the two barges, until the camera is emptied, and lowered for the reception of another batch of prisoners. We follow the barges to the landing-place, and, dis- embarking, join the noisy procession which, led by a couple of drummers, files off to the Mercata Reale, where we find numbers of great eyeless tunny (the produce of a still earlier haul) piled up in ensanguined heaps on the flags. Here, too, are alalongas, whose long pectorals have been draggled in the mire, with many other large and curious fish, and the long-bladed heads of two or three sword-fish fixed on end in the upper part of the woodwork of the same stalls, while their huge bodies lie below, cut up into great masses ; and whole hampers of labridce attract our gaze by their ever-varying and ex- quisitely beautiful tints. 114 ABOUT THE MACKEREL. Here we may close our narrative, and dismissing this coarse and ill-flavoured fish,* pass on to a consideration of that daintiest and most appetizing of scombers, the MACKEREL. A smooth, elongated body, covered with excessively small scales ; the back of a fine metallic blue, streaked with black ; the upper part of the head also blue and THE MACKEREL. black ; the rest of the body of a pearly or silvery white ; and the dorsal fins separate, by these signs may the reader recognize a fish which is truly one of the " trea- sures of the deep." Geographically speaking, the mackerel extends over a very wide range of sea, embracing the whole of the European and American waters, and stretching as far southward even as the Canary Islands. It appears off * There is an American tunny (Thynnus secundo-dor sails], found on the New York coast and off Nova Scotia, whose flesh is of a much better quality. It also yields a large quantity of oil. The Albacore (Thynnus albacorus), a native of the West Indian seas, and the Bonito (Thynnus pelamys), the Tropical enemy of the flying-fish, belong to the tunny genus. The Medi- terranean owns two species of bonito, Pelamys Sarda and Auxis vulgaris. THE MIGRATION THEORY EXAMINED. 115 the British coasts early in the year that is, in January and February; and individuals are always to be found in our seas. It was formerly asserted that they passed the winter in the Icy Ocean, burying their heads deep in tnud and sea-weed ; that towards the spring they mi- grated southward, skirting the coasts of Ireland and Scotland ; that then they poured into the Atlantic Ocean, and divided into two columns, one of which sailed away for the Mediterranean, while the other made for the English Channel. All this is now exploded. It seems to be true of the mackerel, as of the herring, that it re- tires usually into the depths of the sea, but rises to the surface and moves towards the coast as its spawning- season approaches, which occurs earlier or later in the year according to locality. On this point we may quote Mr. Yarrell : It does not appear, as he remarks, to have been sufficiently considered by the advocates of the migration theory, that, inhabiting a medium which does not greatly vary either in its temperature or productions, locally, fishes are removed beyond the influence of the two princi- pal causes which make a temporary change of situation necessary. Independently of the difficulty of tracing the course pursued through so vast an expanse of water, the order of the appearance of the fish at different places on the shores of the temperate and southern countries of Europe is the reverse of what would have happened had the aforesaid theory of migrations been true. " It is a fact beyond dispute that the mackerel is caught, though not plentifully, on some parts of our own coast in every month of the year. We may conclude that it inhabits all or nearly all the European seas ; and the law of 116 CATCHING MACKEREL. nature which obliges them and many others to visit the shallower water of the shores at a particular season, ap- pears to be one of those wise and bountiful provisions of the Creator, by which not only is the species perpetuated with the greatest certainty, but a large portion of the parent animals are thus brought within the reach of man ; who, but for the action of this law, would be deprived of many of those species most valuable to him as food. For the mackerel dispersed over the immense expanse of ocean, no effective fishery could be carried on ; but, approaching the shore as they do from all directions, and roving along the coast collected in immense shoals, millions are caught, v/uich yet form but a very small portion compared with the myriads that escape." MACKEREL-FISHING. Mackerel are caught with the line and with the seine- net, that is, much in the same way as the pilchard. In fishing with the linej almost any kind of hook may be used. The great point is to carry the fish to market in the freshest possible condition, as it speedily deteriorates A DANGEROUS SHOAL. 117 on removal from its " native element." Welled boats are largely employed, therefore, in its transit from the fishing-grounds to the nearest port. Mackerel are exceedingly voracious, and if one might believe an anecdote told by Pontoppidan that most credulous of bishops ! we might suppose that they would " turn the tables " with a vengeance and prey upon man himself, if they could secure the chance. He tells a story of a sailor bathing off the coast of Norway, who was carried off and almost devoured by a shoal of mackerel ! At least, he would have been devoured, had not his comrades succeeded in helping him into the boat, where he shortly afterwards expired, through loss of blood, exhaustion, and terror. The Norwegian mackerel, we suspect, are bolder than the British, if Pontoppidan is to be considered an authority ! The intestines of the mackerel formed part of the famous garum, or fish-sauce of the ancients, which, ac- cording to Galen, was worth two thousand pieces of gold per quart. From what is known of its composition, a modern connoisseur would scarcely accept it as a gift. Another important member of the Scomberidse is the well-known SWORD-FISH, which frequently attains a length of sixteen feet, and is armed with an extraordi- nary weapon for purposes offensive and defensive. This weapon is none other than a broad, sharp, heavy blade of bone, hard as steel, and frequently eleven feet long, forming a prolongation of the upper jaw. Taken in con- junction with its owner's size, strength, and agility, it renders him so formidable an adversary even to the hugest denizens of the salt waters that we need not 118 THE SWORD-FISH. THE SWORD-PISH. wonder he was formerly called " the Emperor." * It might well be supposed that he exercised a kind of im- perial authority over the inhabitants of the deep. The ancients seem to have regarded him with a curiosity which had something of terror in it; and we find Sophocles exclaiming : Ap* OVK 'E/8H/V9 TOUT' e^aA/cei/cre i<|>os ...... Syp-iovpyos a*yptos. What Erinnys, or what evil-doer, Armed thee, Xiphias, with thy pointed sword? His temper is as keen as his weapon. He is the most quarrelsome of ocean monsters, the most pugnacious of * He may also have been designated "imperatore," in allusion to his power- ful weapon ; the Roman imperators, in their pictures, being always repre- sented sword in hand. AN ENEMY TO THE WHALE. 1 1 9 fishes; whence Ovid, or some other Latin poet,* describes him as being as unrelenting as the sword he carries ' " Et durus Xiphias ictu non mitior ensi." We are told, indeed, that nothing alive or dead escapes his fury; that he attacks, almost indiscriminately, the larger fish and marine mammals, boats and bathers, and even, when baffled in his assault, will spend his violence on the very rocks. If he falls in with a shoal of tunny, he rushes into their midst, like a wolf among a flock of sheep, and plunges his "reeking weapon" in rapid suc- cession in their bleeding flanks. Should any hapless bather lie in his course, he dashes at him, and runs him through the body as happened, indeed, some forty years ago, to a man while swimming near the mouth of the Severn. But against whales, in particular, his rage is so excessive, that some authorities have supposed his wild onslaughts against rocks and ships to originate in an error of judgment; that they are intended to punish the ocean leviathan, but have failed in their aim owing to the im- perfection of vision from which the sword-fish, like other scombers, suffers. The sword-fish is described as specially partial to whale's tongue. At all events, he pursues the huge cetaceous mammal without intermission. The latter, having only its tail to defend its colossal bulk, attempts to crush its assailant with a blow; but the nimble scomber generally eludes it, darts aside, and swiftly returning, transfixes the whale with its keen sword ; the " multitudinous sea," by its " incarnadined waves," quickly reveals the fatal issue of the fight. Captain Crow, cited by Mr. * We owe the quotation to Badham. 120 GIGANTIC "SPADAS." Yarrell, relates that in a voyage to Memel, one tranquil night, when off the Hebrides, he called up his crew to witness a curious encounter between some "thrashers" (Carcharias vulpes), a genus of sharks, and a sword-fish, leagued together against a whale. No sooner was the vast back of the monster raised a little above the surface than the thrashers sprang several feet into the air, and descending, struck it with their tails, the blows resounding like the peal of distant ordnance. Meantime, the sword- fish attacked the whale from below, getting close under its belly, and attacking it with a vigour and effect that did not leave the result of the combat doubtful. Numerous instances are on record of the sword-fish having transfixed the timbers of a ship with its powerful blade. He fights obstinately with the saw-fish and the shark, and is usually victorious ; but is himself the victim of a miserable little enemy, a crustacean parasite the penna- tulafilosa which eats into his flesh, and almost maddens him with pain. The spere spada, as the Italians call him, is often found on a very large scale, and monstrous specimens occasion- ally visit our own coasts. An individual stranded on the Essex shore measured ten feet in length, a third of which belonged to the osseous blade. This, however, was a comparatively diminutive example ; for several naturalists speak of Mediterranean spadas which weigh four hundred pounds, and measure from twelve to fourteen feet ; while Cuvier supposes eighteen or twenty feet to be within their range of development. These Anaks of the race, however, are of infrequent occurrence ; the spadas caught in the Mediterranean, and exposed for sale in the Sicilian A CURIOUS DEVICE. 123 fish-markets, averaging from four feet to six. The flesh, which is much valued by the better classes at Palermo, is dressed in nearly as many ways as the tunny, but fetches a higher price. Its fibre is delicately white, and the round segments, as they lie in rows along the stalls, re- semble so many fillets of veal; and the resemblance is equally apparent when they are served at table. Oppian records a curious device to which the ancient fishermen resorted for the purpose of entrapping the spada. They made use of boats constructed like the ^SF^^ CATCHING SWORD-FISH IN THE OLDEN TIME. sword-fish, with a long prow to resemble its beak, and painted with the deep colours peculiar to it. The scomber, which is reputed to be a dull fish, approached these shams in confidence, mistaking them for new acquaintances of their own kind, and did not discover the mistake until it was too late. " To fishy form, the artistic builders lend Mimetic fins, and wooden sword protend. With social joy each xiphias views his friends, And kindly instincts aid man's treacherous ends. 124 HARPOONING SWORD-FISH. Anon the crafty boatmen, closing round, The trident hurl and deal the deadly wound. The goaded fish, experience bought too late, Escapes, but oft still battles hard with fate ; Unvanquished, summons to his instant aid The oft-tried prowess of his trusty blade ; Selects some boat, and runs his puissant sword Full many an inch within the fatal board. Then held no more, the doughty weapon yields, And crimsons with his blood the briny fields." Such is Oppian's story. All we can say is, that, if true, the spadas were more foolish of old than they are now-a-days ! In Sicily the sword-fish is caught with the harpoon after a fashion thus described by Brydone : A look-out man, perched on the mast of a vessel, noti- fies to his comrades the first glimpse he obtains of the spada; the fishermen, who in Sicily, and indeed every- where else, are much given to superstition, immediately begin a measured chant, indispensable, in their opinion, to success. As soon as the spada, enticed by the ditty, like the dolphin by Arion's music, has come sufficiently near the boat to be reached by a missile, the skilful har- pooner flings his weapon, attached to a long coil of cord, and seldom fails to strike and secure his victim, even though at some distance. This siren song, the only tune ever employed on these occasions, is so efficacious, say the sailors, that the spada cannot retreat while it con- tinues ; but should the enchanted " sea-monster," before he is struck with the harpoon, hear a word of Italian, the spell is instantly broken, the charm dissolved, and down he plunges into the "vasty deep," whence no further summons or incantations will again evoke him ! The weapon used by the harpooner is a spear made of elm, a tough, tenacious wood, about thirteen feet in THE PALIMADARA. 125 length, and terminating in an iron head measuring seven inches. It is also provided with a couple of iron oreilles, or " ears," which move up and down, and consequently increase the severity of the wound made by the pointed shaft of the harpoon. SPEARING SWORD-FISH. In the Strait of Messina the spada-fishery is also carried on with the net. For this purpose, the net employed is about forty feet long and ten feet wide, with stout, compact, and small meshes, made of the strongest twine ; it is locally known as the palimadara. The fishery begins in mid- April, and continues until the end of June, along the whole Calabrian coast. Later 126 FISHERY OFF THE SICILIAN COAST. in the year, it begins on the Sicilian coast. Between two large boats, propelled by lateen sails, the net is lowered to the bottom of the sea ; and as, under a press of canvas, the brigantines dart onward, the rushing net catches up everything it encounters in its course. " I was present several times at this fishery," says Spallan- zani, " and I am unable to say what numbers of small fish fell victims to the barbarous process. Being worth- less, they were flung back into the sea, but terribly mutilated, and already dead from the terror they had ex- perienced in the meshes of the net. I was informed that at Geneva the practice was prohibited by law ; if so, the statute was not strong enough to prevent three or four couples of these brigantines from annually quitting the Gulf of Spezzia and making for the high seas to pursue this wasteful mode of fishing. And more : the governor of the place, who ought to have watched over the execu- tion of the law, was the first to encourage its infraction, his acquiescence being purchased by the gift of a sum of money." Only one species of the sword-fish is known Xipkias gladius which abounds in the Mediterranean and in the warmer parts of the Atlantic, but is not often seen on the British coasts. Its body is elongated and covered with very small scales. It has no teeth. There is one long dorsal fin, but there are no finlets, and the ventral fins are want- ing. The sides of the tail are strongly keeled or carin- ated. The tail fin is large and forked. On the upper part of the body the colour is a bluish-black, on the belly a silverish-white, but the one blends gradually with the other. CHAPTER IV. THE HERRING. j]T is almost unnecessary to describe a fish whicli is so widely known and so generally popular as the HERRING ; which is a welcome dainty on the tables of the rich, and a common article of daily food among the poor. We may note, however, two or three peculiarities. Its belly is carin- ated, or keeled, and protected by strong scales, whence we may conclude that it is " a ground -feeder." Its air-bag is of unusual size, and its pectoral fin is also very large, whence we may conclude that it can swim with ease and rapidity. There is reason to believe that it preys upon its own young, or upon the roe of its kind, when other nutri- ment is scarce; but, as a rule, it feeds upon acalephce and minute crustaceans, as well as upon small fishes. Its lobes of roe or milt are larger in proportion to its body than those of any other fish, and its fecundity is remarkable. It deposits its ova in comparatively shallow water ; always selecting, with admirable instinct, a locality where they will adhere with facility, and where the young, when hatched, will find an abundance of nourishment. The herring (Clupea harengus) belongs to the mala- copterous family of the Clupeidce. When alive, its (502) 9 128 ABOUT THE HERRING. colours are a glaucous green on the back, and silvery white on the belly and sides ; when dead, the green changes into blue, and in a dark place the whole body is invested with a kind of phosphorescence. THE HERRING. The herring inhabits the waters of the Northern Hemisphere, and is found in every sea from the North Pole to the 50th parallel of latitude, but it is specially and particularly a fish of the temperate regions. It is gre- garious ; and at certain seasons it leaves the deep water in immense shoals, or banks, of several leagues in extent, and of an extraordinary compactness, and approaches the shore. These banks are sometimes so dense that the fish composing them literally suffocate themselves by thou- sands in the shallows ; and the nets of the fishermen are torn asunder by the weight of their capture. FECUNDITY OF THE HERRING. 129 The track of the herring-shoal is indicated at night by a bright and continuous phosphoric gleam ; in the day, by the gulls and other sea-birds which pursue them. These are not the only enemies of the herring ; the hake, the dog-fish, the porpoise, and, it is said, the whale and the shark, consume them in enormous quantities. And when we reflect on the millions which are caught for the use of man, we shall own that their fecundity was a wise PHOSPHORESCENT SHOALS OF HERRING. provision of Nature. It enables the product to keep pace with the consumption, as many as 68,606 eggs having been counted in a single female. We may add that the females outnumber the males in the proportion of seven to two. It was anciently believed that the herring was a mi- gratory fish, and some of the earlier writers trace with the most curious particularity the route it was supposed to follow. Thus they say that the great caravan which every January starts from the icy regions of the Pole 130 SUPPOSED MIGRATORY MOVEMENTS. divides into two main branches : of these the right wing steers towards the west, and arrives in March on the coasts of Iceland ; the left wing moves eastward, and, in a certain latitude, breaks up into several shoals. Some repair to the Newfoundland Bank ; others make for the coast of Norway, and pass through the Sound into the Baltic Sea. Others progress towards the northern point of Jutland, and after remaining there for a considerable period, rejoin the legions of the Baltic by sailing through the Cattegat. They keep together for a while, and once more separate, to repair to the shores of Holland, the Texel, and the Zuyder-Zee. The heer, says Pennant, which moves westward, is the most numerous. Having arrived off the Scottish coast, it divides into two columns, one of which sails south- ward to the English waters, and those of Friesland, Zea- land, Brabant, and France ; the other visits Iceland. Finally, the scattered shoals meet together in the English Channel, severely weakened by the immense losses they have sustained, and disappear in the Atlantic Ocean. It is added that each shoal or battalion measures five or six miles in length, and three or four miles in breadth ; and is led, in the belief of the fishermen, by herrings (probably the alice and twaite shad) of superior size and sagacity. But to this theory we must advance some very forcible objections. It is obvious, for instance, that if the main heer, having started in one vast body from the Arctic Seas, separate in the latitude of Iceland into two columns, one of which makes for Europe and the other for America, these two columns should arrive at nearly the same time on the coasts of the Old and New Continents. But, on WHEN DO HERRINGS SPAWN? 133 the contrary, the herring-fishery in America does not begin until April, while in the Firth of Forth it is car- ried on in winter. Again, the American herring is not of the same species as the European. The fact is, recent observation has very clearly proved that the herring is not a migratory fish ; that different species belong to different localities, and that their only movement is one, at certain periods of the year, from the deep waters towards the shore. Mr. Bertram is of opinion that the herring exists in distinct races, which arrive at maturity month after month. It is well known, he says, that the herrings taken at Wick in July are quite different from those caught at Dunbar in August or September ; indeed, he goes further, and asserts that even at Wick each month has its changing shoal, and that as one race ripens for capture another disappears, having fulfilled its mission of procreation. It is certain that the herrings of these different seasons vary considerably in size and appear- ance ; and we know that the herrings of different locali- ties are marked by distinctive features. Thus the famous Loch Fyne herring is essentially different in its flavour from that of the Firth of Forth, and those taken in the Firth of Forth differ again in many particulars from those caught off' Yarmouth. Much discussion has been suggested by the question, at what periods of the year the herrings spawn. Our limited space prevents us from entering into details ; and, moreover, these would be of little interest to the general reader. It is our business to state the conclusions arrived at by the best authorities ; and, iiow-a days, there 134 HERRING AND SPRAT. seems a consensus of opinion that the spawning-seasons are two, spring and autumn. Taking all parts of the British coast together, February and March would seem to be the great months for the spring spawning, and August and September for the autumn spawning ; but gravid herrings have been caught in every month except June and December. The spawn is deposited on the surface of the stones, shingle, gravel, and old shells which make up the ocean- bed, and appears to be hatched within five or six weeks after deposition. The rate of growth of the young fish is not exactly known, but we may assume that it reaches maturity in about eighteen months, and can reproduce its kind in about three years. Many trustworthy authorities incline to the opinion that the sprat (Clupea sprattus) * is not, as some writers assume, a distinct species of fish, but the young of the herring. We cannot help thinking, however, that the specific differences between them are fatal to this hypo- thesis. For instance, the ventral fins in the sprat begin immediately beneath the first ray of the dorsal fin, and not, as in the herring, beneath the middle of it. Again, its ventral fins have no axillary scales. Its dentition is different, and it has a serrated instead of a carinated belly. In truth, the only argument advanced in support of the hypothesis is based on the circumstance that it is not common to find sprats full of roe; but this is due to the fact that they are caught before they are full-grown. The herring is found under four distinct conditions : 1st, Fry or sill ; 2nd, Matres, or fat herring; 3rd, Full * Also known as Harengula sprattus. AN EXTRAORDINARY CATCH. 135 herring ; 4th, Shotten, or spent herring. To the first denomination belong all herrings under five or six inches in length. The second class is the best fitted for food purposes ; and it is unfortunate that the herring should be taken in any other condition. In the course of three months the rnatre develops into the full or spawning herring. At the spawning-season they come together in immense shoals, and hasten to the " spawning-grounds " in the shallower and warmer waters of the coast. The magnitude of these shoals can hardly be appreciated by one who has not seen them. Sometimes they are driven ashore in such numbers that the inhabitants of the neigh- bourhood are absolutely unable to cure them, and the adjacent markets are completely overstocked. They may be caught in baskets or buckets, half a dozen at a dip. On the 16th of October, in the year 1873, an extraordin- ary influx of herrings took place at the mouth of the river Exe. As fast as the boats could be unloaded, a hundred men, women, and children were engaged in stowing the fish in hampers to be sent by the South Devon Railway to London for sale. The herrings were piled on the beach in heaps two feet thick, while many were floating dead in the water, as the nets had broken in drawing them ashore. The neighbouring villagers hastened to the spot with their baskets, and some in donkey-carts, to secure as many as they were able to carry off ; a large quantity was taken by the farmers to be used for manure. CHAPTER V. THE HERRING-FISHERY. j|HE fishing-boats generally start on their ex- pedition an hour or two before sunset, their crews consisting of four men and a boy, be- sides the skipper and owner. Sometimes both owner and skipper are combined in one individual. The stores on board do not occupy much space : a loaf of bread or hard biscuit and a keg of water can be stowed away in any corner. The sail, a great brown stretch of coarse and weather-beaten canvas, marked with the registered number of the boat, is soon hoisted, and away the fishers go, quickly leaving the shore and its sparkling lights behind them. There is genuine excitement, we can assure the reader, in an expedition of this kind, and whoever visits one of the herring-ports in the herring- season should make interest with a skipper, in order to gain an experience of a novel and exhilarating phase of life. The evening draws in apace ; darker and darker grows the western sky, as the last pale reflections of the sunset are lost in the deep clear blue of night. All around, the waves are dotted with shifting gleams, as the h erring-boats, rocked by the ripple and sped by the A NOCTURNAL EXPEDITION. 139 breeze, toss their lanterns to and fro. These gleams are scattered more and more apart as the little fleet gets further out to sea, and each bark pursues its independent route. At last the coast-line is no longer discernible, and the steady light at the harbour-mouth has vanished. We tack hither and thither in the solitude ? uncertain where to take up our position, until our skipper becomes aware of an oily lustre on the water, and a phosphorescent sparkle on each undulating crest, which tell of the presence of the shoal. Then he jumps up, and orders all hands to work. The other boats, warned by the same signs, close in around, and the hoarse wailing cries of the gulls are an indication that they too are coming in search of booty. " Look alive, my men ! Out with the sinker !" Overboard goes yard after yard of net, breadth after breadth, as fast as the men can pay them out, each division being indicated by a large painted bladder, until about a mile of " mesh-work," many feet in depth, is let go ; the further end being shown by the " dog," an inflated skin of considerable size and the general dis- position of the nets being traced by a long zigzag row of bladders, which, as it floats on the waves, and rises and dips with the motion of the tide, resembles nothing so much as the " dorsal ridge " of a great sea- serpent ! And now the crew and their passenger may take a quiet sleep, " rocked in the cradle of the deep;" or chant old sea-songs, weird and strange ; or muse on the mysteries of the sea, and the countless stories of romance and enterprise associated with it from the time when Jason and his adventurers embarked in the Argo to the stirring times when Vasco da Gama led his gilded galleys across 140 " HOME AGAIN." the unknown waters to "far Cathay;" or they may watch the first faint coming of the day as the gray light breaks upon the eastern horizon. The skipper, however, is on the watch, for as the herring-fleet moves onward with wind and tide, his nets may become entangled with those of other fishermen, or be torn by a passing boat. At last the time comes for hauling in the nets ; the bobbing down of some of the bladders, and other signs perceptible to the initiated, demonstrating the welcome fact that our labour has not been in vain. The men haul in the swing-rope with a will. The coiled net- work soon reaches the boat's side. " In with them, men !" Breadth after breadth is tumbled on board, and the quivering fish, each flashing like an arrow of silver, are shot to the bottom of the boat, there to breathe their last feeble gasp. We calculate our cargo at forty crans ; not an excessive one, yet by no means to be despised. And now the sail is hoisted ; the boat's head is put about, and we steer for the distant harbour. When we reach the shore, all the lights are out ; the glow of day is upon the landscape, and illumines the green hills and the leafy woods and the picturesque outline of the rocky coast. The quay is thronged with spectators, who wel- come each loaded boat as it arrives with obvious interest. But such is not always the cheering spectacle. After a stormy night, pale faces will be there with anxious eyes, straining to catch sight of the boat of husband, son, or brother : the boat, perchance, that never comes ; that during the darkness has gone down with all on board ; or that, if it comes, comes with battered sides and canvas rent and lost nets, a messenger of poverty, suffering, and want. VALUE OF THE HERRING-FISHERIES. 141 As a source of national wealth, the herring-fishery is of signal importance. In Scotland and the Isle of Man it employs nearly 300 vessels, manned by 1200 men and boys ; while the total number of boats, decked or un- decked, is about 10,000, manned by 45,000 fishermen and boys. Add to these the coopers, gutters, packers, net- makers, and other labourers, dependent more or less directly on the herring-fishery, and it would seem pro- bable that it supports 90,000 persons in Scotland alone. The value of the nets in use exceeds ,400,000, and of the herring-boats 300,000. In England the herring-fishery, it is well known, has been carried on since the beginning of the eighth century. In Normandy it commenced before the eleventh. Holland owes its prosperity in no small degree to this fishery, which the Dutch have always prosecuted with great energy. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century they almost monopolized it, employing in it 2000 boats ; while it is computed that this single branch of industry supported 800,000 persons in the two provinces of Holland and Western Friesland. They have been dis- tanced, however, by the British fishermen, and find for- midable rivals in the Americans, Norwegians, and French. The Scotch herring-fishery is regulated by special Acts of Parliament, and controlled by a Board, known as the " Commissioners for the British Fisheries." This Board allows of no other method of taking the fish than by a drift-net, " trawling" being illegal in Scotland. The drift-net is composed of fine twine worked into meshes of an inch square, and measures 50 yards in length and 33 feet in depth. These nets are joined together, and let into the water in a straight line, where they are kept 142 LOCH FYNE HERRINGS. perpendicular by a number of bladders or cork floats, balanced by a few slight weights of lead. A single boat will often draw after it a " drift " a series of nets ex- tending fully a mile in length. We now proceed to describe the different aspects of the fishery, as carried on in different localities, premising that the cargo of a herring-boat is measured by crans, each cran containing forty-five gallons. The reputation enjoyed by the Yarmouth herrings in England, belongs in Scotland to the fish caught in Loch Fyne, a great arm of the sea which cuts into the west coast between the Mull of Cantire and the Island of Bute, striking inland as far as Inveraray, the chief town of the territory of the Campbells. Loch Fyne herrings, how- ever, are celebrated " furth of the kingdom." Sam Slick panegyrizes them as " Glasgow bailies ;" a sobriquet allud- ing to the circumstance that, of old, the finest specimens were presented to the Bailie of the River Clyde, locally known as the " Skate Bailie," by the vendors who dis- posed of their wares on the Glasgow quay. As early as 836 the Dutch fishermen frequented Loch Fyne in order to purchase its savoury fish ; and for centuries they traded largely with the herring, curing such enormous quantities that many a fortune was built up by its means even in Amsterdam itself, which, according to the ancient pro- verb, was erected on herring-bones. It has been pointed out that this enrichment of the Dutch meant the spolia- tion of the West Highlanders, who were foolish enough to look upon the whale-fishery in Arctic seas as preferable to the herring-fishery in their own waters. Not, says a writer in Once a Week, that they altogether despised the THE LOCH FYNE FISHERY. 143 herring ; for it appears that a Lord Breadalbane, in 1590, received a portion of his rent from a Loch Fyne tenant in Loch Fyne herrings. At length they became aware of the full importance of the wealth which circulated to and fro in their great sea-loch, and undertook the herring-fishery with so much vigour that they gradually got it wholly into their own hands, and raised it to the position of a national interest. In Loch Fyne alone the annual value of the fishery is computed at .25,000 ; and whoever has ascended in the lona that most luxurious of river steam- boats to Ardrishaig, must have seen the large fleet of dusky boats which are engaged in it. The waters of Loch Fyne formerly teemed to such an extent with the herring-shoals, that the Gaelic fishermen were wont to say the loch was one part water and two parts fish. We may remark, in passing, that the word herring alludes to the abundance of the fish. It comes from the German heer, a legion or army. As many as 20,000 barrels, each containing from 500 to 800 fish, and each worth about fifty shillings, have been cured in a year in the Loch Fyne district. In fact, the demand now exceeds the supply, and the West Highland fishermen have never any difficulty in disposing of their cargoes. At the head of the peninsula of Cantire, completely shut in by bare and rugged mountains, stands the little town of East Tarbert, with its small but secure harbour opening into Loch Fyne. A secure harbour when once you are in it ; but the approach, through broken and sombre rocks, the resting-places of scores of gulls and gannets, is so intricate, that no one but a Loch Fyne fisherman could possibly carry his smack through the labyrinth ! As Lord Teignmouth says, " The rude outworks of the (5 mi ii i iii \ ii.i iii .1 111 .1 111 .1 \ I ! II I I , ,11 .. 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I I 1,1 II , I M . |...| I )..|| ,,| I I,, |HM| Tin , ..|. i .1 Inll i . ,M,,|M. I, ,1 M, ,1 ,. -. iiiil,mimi< I.OMH.I! llrttplltcon I'lingm! iilnlif- oho hhlo nl' i( I I, || III , |.| I. - UK . . ,,,! I, . I, - I -|M II . ,11,1 III ; M I ., MM,- ,I,M. M,,| I,, I I II, ' ! yvltli i M "> li ! " M Ii i , . ii . Ii i Ii. iii i ! ,1 ,li ,-|. , I I I 111 (VUIII I I I' III I'-' I I ! I'M i ... i - .I, Miny Mil. L I .|.< I il Kill. - I ii . I . I : . i 1 1 1 1 , . 1 1 . 1 1 i|i . i 1 1.. ' A -.1 1 N, .11 id i| l,. I-.!, it, !.!.. I ! wood, >i l> i i.. .11 I, .1. I,- i. in In Illllnl -.. I In I Dili I. ">" Kill -I' I ' i (HI I , |||!|lll! ill I, ||i i,. I l .il IlK'll M 'l ' i. I ' I In | 'li I'll I In l,f .! y i|| |'H II ' ' I I ' in iiunil.' i <-l |.i< ;i of >|M .1 l> ii"l Ii, .unl (In. I I,, in I 1,1 , . I. . I . I , I III "I' Kuril | .1 M,. |,|||l In,,, i in. I' In -I I I I In .1 I ..I I In in I, ',),. . ,,(.,( In, -I- I I I , unl i |,| I I,. HI .,., I In |.ii 'I In III , I . IK/! ill,). . I. .| |,0 I III |.i ,. . MI. | .1 y noh'lii'.ij .ml |,ul .,., (In |.il 'I In. :-|.|l In I. I. II' 'I. If! I, ,m|. .1 I .. I In olflftll ill f| ..1,1 -.I I In I -I II,' I),. 212 THE COMACCHIO FISHERIES. fire at a proper temperature ; the other superintends the roasting of the eels, carefully shifting the spits from a higher to a lower position in front of the fire, until the fish are properly done, when the spits are taken off by the woman who lays them aside for the next operation. This woman also attends to the grease that collects in the trough below the spits, and stores it in jars for future use. Besides these fireplaces, a number of furnaces are fitted with large circular frying-pans, which are under the exclusive management of men. All the fish for which the spit is unsuitable are fried in these pans, with a mix- ture of the grease dropped from the eels and olive-oil. They are exposed to the air for some time, even in very warm weather, before being cooked. This operation renders them fitter for preservation. The eels roasted on spits, and the fish cooked in the frying-pans, are placed in baskets of open work to dreep and cool. They are then packed in barrels of large and small sizes. The packing is carefully and regularly done, similar to the method of packing herrings. A mixture of vinegar and salt is poured into the barrel before it is closed up. The vinegar must be of the strongest, and the salt employed is gray rock-salt instead of white salt. Previous to exportation, the barrels are branded with different letters, according to the nature of the fish contained in them. The fisheries at Comacchio date from a very early period. They did not assume, however, any degree of organization until 1229. Since that date, the waters have been dyked out from those of the Adriatic, and the canals formed which communicate with the Reno and Volano mouths of the Po, and the Adriatic. They now A GRAND FESTIVAL. 213 employ a population of about 6000, and the average "take" may be estimated at 1,000,000 Ibs. yearly. When any "farm," or company of fishermen, captures 48,000 Ibs. of fish in a single night, a grand festival is held, in which all the inhabitants of Comacchio partici- pate. CHAPTER IX. THE LOBSTER AND THE CRAB. " If like a crab you could go backward." SHAKESPEARE. HE LOBSTER has been happily described as "a standing romance of the sea:" an animal whose clothing is a shell, which it casts away once a year in order that it may assume a larger suit ; an animal whose flesh is found in its tail and legs, and its hair in the inside of its breast ; whose stomach is in its head, and is changed annually for a new one, which begins its brief career by devouring its predecessor ; an animal which carries its eggs within its body until they become fruitful, and then bears them outwardly under its tail ; an animal which can throw off its legs when it finds them troublesome, and in a short time can replace them with others ; and, finally, an animal whose quick, keen eyes are placed in a pair of movable horns. The reader, if he had never seen a lobster, would pro- bably conclude, from this description, that it was an altogether anomalous and abnormal creature, living a ABOUT THE LOBSTER. 217 strange, wild life of its own, and belonging, indeed, to some singular world of monstrosities in which the ordi- nary laws of Nature had no control. But, on the con- trary, it fills its proper place in the scale of animated life ; its structure is admirably adapted to the conditions under which it performs the vital functions ; and in its organiza- tion the same great principles obtain as are apparent in the economy of all created beings. The lobster is a crustaceous animal, belonging to the sub-order Macrura, or long-tailed Decapods. Its scien- tific name is Homarus vulgaris. On examining it we see at once that its body is com- posed of two parts, popularly called the " head " and the " tail," the latter being jointed and flexible. The so- called "head" is really composed of both the head, strictly so termed, and the thorax (or "chest") the two being wedded into a single mass which naturalists call the " cephalo thorax." On the other hand, what is popularly called the "tail" is really the "abdomen." Along the lower surface of the body are disposed the feelers, claws, legs, and other appendages; and these, as well as the entire body, are enclosed in a complete suit of armour, a strong chitinous (or partly horny) shell, or ex-skeleton, while the cephalothorax is covered by a great cephalic shield or plate, termed the "cara- pace." Each segment of the body is composed, in the main, of a convex upper plate, termed the "tergum," which is closed underneath by a flatter plate known as the " ster- num " the line where the two unite being extended, downwards and outwards, into a plate called the " plue- ron," or " pluera." 218 THE DIFFERENT SEGMENTS. The somites, or segments, may be described as follows, beginning at the animal's posterior extremity : The last segment is called the " telson," and is with- out appendages. It forms the final articulation of the abdomen. To the next segment, or last but one, is attached a pair of natatory appendages, the " swirnmerets," each con- sisting of a basal joint which articulates with the ster- num, and is called the " protopodite ; " and of two diverg- ing joints, the "exopodite" (which is the outer), and " endopodite" (which is the inner), attached to the for- mer. These joints are considerably expanded, so as to form powerful paddles ; and the outer one, or exopodite, is divided by a transversal joint. The third segment carries a pair of "swimmerets" resembling those already described, except that they are much narrower, and that the exopodite is not divided. In the succeeding segment the extremities of the limbs, or ambulatory appendages, are not simply pointed, but converted into nipping claws, or " chelae." The next segment carries a pair of chelate limbs, exactly like the preceding ; and the next, or sixth, is fur- nished with appendages essentially similar in structure, but much larger, and constituting the "great claws." The next two segments of the thorax, and the one in front of them, are provided each with a pair of modified limbs, which are termed " maxillipedes," or " foot-jaws." These are so modified as to serve as instruments of mas- tication. The next two somites, or segments, carry appendages in the form of jaws, and are termed respectively the first and second pairs of " maxillae." Each consists, as before, A COMPLEX STRUCTURE. 219 of protopodite, exopodite, endopodite, and the like; but the epipodite (or inner branch) of the first pair of max- illae is rudimentary, while that of the second pair is large and shaped like a spoon. It is termed the " scap- hognathite," and its function is to "cause a current of water to traverse the gill-chamber by constantly bailing water out of it." To the next segment are appended the biting jaws, or " mandibles," each consisting of a large protopodite, and a small endopodite, termed the "palp" (or organ of touch), the exopodite remaining undeveloped. The aperture of the mouth is situated between the bases of the mandibles, bounded behind by a forked pro- cess, called the " labium," or " metastoma," and in front by a single plate, the " labrum," or upper lip. The next segment sustains the long antennae, or feelers, each consisting of a short protopodite, and a long, jointed, and segmented endopodite, with an exopodite which is little more than rudimentary. In front of the great antennae we find the " anten- nules," or smaller antennae, each composed of a protopo- dite and a segmented endopodite and exopodite, which are nearly of equal size. Finally, attached to the first segment of the head are the eyes, each borne upon an eye- stalk formed by the protopodite. The gill-chamber con- sists of a great prolongation downwards of the " pluera " of the thoracic segments, and the gills are attached to the bases of the legs. Such is the complex structure of the Common Lobster,* .which may fairly be regarded as a type of the higher Crustacea. * Nicholson, "Manual of Zoology," pp. 205, 206. 220 ARMS AND LEGS. A few additional details are necessary, however, before the reader can present it to his mind's eye as it lives, moves, and has its being. From the enumeration given above he will have discovered that it possesses eight arti- culated appendages, which, in popular parlance, are called " legs ;" and two great claws, which open like a pair of pincers, are singularly strong, very tenacious in their grasp, and serrated or toothed like a saw. These are its " arms." The tail portion of the animal consists of six joints, or segments, and, as it expands laterally, forms a powerful instrument of locomotion in the water. The head, which is very small, is placed between the two claws, and furnished with eye-stalks which can be pro- jected or retracted at the animal's pleasure. The mouth, like an insect's, opens longitudinally, and contains two teeth for the comminution of its food ; between them extends a fleshy protuberance shaped like a tongue. The colour of the shell of the living animal is a beautiful bluish-black, which is diversified, most fancifully, but agreeably, by paler spots and clouds. As regards its digestive system, the alimentary canal is continued from the mouth in a straight line to the anus. The spinal marrow is lodged in the thorax. The stomach is globose, and contains, in the cardiac portion, a calcareous apparatus for triturating the food, popularly known as the " lady in the lobster." The liver is well developed, and consists of two lobes. The sexes are invariably distinct. The ovary, or place where the spawn is generated, is situated near the tail ; and here is found a bright red substance, much appreciated by the lobster-eater : this consists of a large number of fry too small for exclusion. From the ovary proceed two CASTING ITS SHELL. 221 effluent ducts opening at the base of one of the pairs of the thoracic legs. Through these passages the ova, des- tined for the future multiplication of the species, descend to be excluded and arranged under the tail. The young in their larval state are very imperfect ; nor is the form proper to the adult attained until after several moults, constituting a complete metamorphosis, though one effected by very gradual stages. In a few weeks, however, their shells acquire firmness and solidity, and become useful as offensive and defensive armour. The most remarkable, and, so far as the creature itself is concerned, the most disagreeable incident in the lob- ster's life is its annual exuviations. Like the crab, it sheds its shelly covering every year. Previous to the change it seems to be sick, uneasy, languid. It ceases to harrow up the sand and prowl about for prey, and lies almost motionless and semi-torpid, as if dreading the impending trial. The new shell is developed in three or four days, if, during the period of its defencelessness, it has not fallen a prey to some one of its many enemies or of its own kind. The additional size which the animal gains at each occasion of " moulting" is really wonderful; and not less wonderful is it to see the old coat cast aside, like a suit of worn-out clothes, while the creature, naked and soft, awaits, in a sheltered hole or corner, the growth of its new harness. It is difficult to understand, perhaps, how it contrives to draw the muscles of its claws out of their hard, shelly covering ; but it would seem that dur- ing its sickly state the limb so contracts as to be capable of being withdrawn through the joints and narrow pass- ages near the body. During the first year of its age it changes its shell every six weeks, in the second year 222 FACTS ABOUT LOBSTERS. every two months, and afterwards about once every three months, until, at some age as yet unknown, the moulting process ceases, because the animal ceases to grow. The hen-lobster, during the period of exuviation, is guarded by the male ; and should one male be taken away, another, before long, will be found in some myste- rious manner to have replaced it. The lobster becomes reproductive, it is said, at the age of five years. It is found with eggs, or " in belly," to use the technical term, all the year round. The best season for this crustacean as an edible is from the middle of October till the be- ginning of May. It was long disputed whether the lobster was able to replace a broken limb, or to throw off at its pleasure one which was so injured as to be useless; but that it pos- sesses this twofold capacity is now a well-ascertained fact. We have frequently met with lobsters which have taken to themselves a new claw ; it may almost always be detected by its comparative smallness. Besides the ordinary lobster the Homarus vulgaris which is found on all the coasts of Great Britain, our markets are supplied with the Norwegian (Nephrops Nor- vegicus), which is distinguished by its kidney -shaped eyes and its pale, flesh colour. The American Lobster (Hom- arus A?nericanus) has very large claws. The Spiny Lobster (Palinurus vulgaris), which is often found on the southern coast, is better known, perhaps, as the Sea Crayfish. Its body is encrusted with a number of short spines. It has no claws or pincers, and its antennae are of singular size. Some naturalists identify it with the karabos of the Greeks and the locusta of the Romans. ABOUT THE CRAB. 223 The lobsters found in tropical seas are frequently of ex- traordinary dimensions, and beautifully coloured as, for example, the Palinurus ornatus. THE AMERICAN LOBSTER. There are Crabs and Crabs ; that is, Sea Crabs and Land Crabs. With the latter we need not concern our- selves, though some of the species are in high repute as table delicacies. The sea crabs are of many kinds : Painted Crabs, distinguished by the beautiful markings of their shells ; Hermit Crabs, which roam about the sands and take possession of the deserted shells of univalves; (502) 15 224 THE SEA CRABS. THE HERMIT CRAB. Sand Crabs, which burrow in the sand, and lie perdu at the bottom of their excavations ; and Calling Crabs, carry- ing aloft the enormous claw in whose beckoning gesture has originated their popular name. The aquatic crabs and shore crabs in their general organization resemble the crustaceans already described, and undergo the same process of " moulting," or exuviation. They are remark- able for their complex masticatory apparatus. The mouth is provided with fully eight pieces or pairs of jaws, which pass the food through an exceedingly short gullet into a membraneous stomach of considerable size. This stomach contains certain cartilaginous appendages, five in number, to which strong, grinding teeth are at- A PROFITABLE FISHERY. 225 THE CRAB. tached. As they are placed at the pyloric extremity, or outlet of the stomach, the food, after undergoing the action of the jaws, is re-chewed or triturated by the stomach-teeth, before entering the digestive tube, where it comes in contact with the biliary fluid of the liver. The lobster and crab fishery can be conducted without much capital, and in the intervals of the fishermen's re- gular employment. The Scotch laird's advice to his son, says Bertram,* to "be always stickin' in the ither tree, it will be growin' when ye are sleeping' ' holds good in lobster-fishing. The " pots," as they are called, may be * Bertram, " Harvest of the Sea," p. 386. 226 LOBSTER-TRAPS DESCRIBED. baited and left until a crustacean is enticed into the snare ; the men, meantime, cruising for bait, or going out in search of haddock. Or the fishing may be left to the old men and youngsters of our fishing- villages ; and these, in the fine days, may be seen watching their lobster-traps and crab-cages with praiseworthy vigilance. What is a lobster-trap 1 In appearance it is not un- like " an overgrown rat-trap ; " and it is constructed of stout netting fastened over a framework of wood, and baited with any kind of fish offal or strongly-scented gar- bage. For the crustaceans are the scavengers of the sea, and feed upon the foullest refuse. A number of lobster-pots are sunk in a suitable locality, at a depth of twelve to twenty fathoms, and connected by a stout line. When the fisherman thinks his bait has taken, he pulls off in his boat, hauls in his pots, and hastens ashore to deposit them in some convenient recep- tacle until " wanted." The said receptacle is usually an old chest, perforated with many holes, so as to admit the water, and secured in a quiet corner of the beach. In such a receptacle the lobsters can live and ruminate, if crustaceans are given to rumination. As for crabs, a line and a bit of raw meat will enable the amateur to make himself the lawful possessor of any number. They are caught in large quantities off the jetties and piers of our sea-ports, being attracted thither by the garbage which is thrown overboard from the fish- ing-smacks and homeward-bound vessels. On the granite-bound coast of Scotland, says Mr. Ber- tram, the sport of crab-hunting may be enjoyed to per- fection, and the wonders of the deep studied at the same time. A long pole with a small crook at the end "will LOBSTER DEPOTS. 227 draw the crab from its nest; or great fun may be enjoyed by tying during low- water a piece of bait to a string, and attaching to the other end a stone. The crab seizes upon this bait whenever the tide flows, and drags it to its hole, so that when the ebb recurs the stone at the end of the cord enables you to track the animal to its hiding-place, and pounce upon it. Lobsters are collected and sent to London from all parts of the coast, being packed in sea- weed and sent in boxes by railway. At Thames Haven is a famous depot for the Norwegian and Scotch lobsters. They arrive in welled vessels, and are kept in large store-boxes, as already described, until wanted. A considerable trade in these crustaceans is carried on between the Orkney Islands and Aberdeen. At Hamble, near Southampton, the lobsters are kept in a kind of reservoir or store-pond, about fifty yards square, lined with brick, having a bot- tom of concrete, and being constantly supplied with a lively current of sea-water. Here they may be kept as long as six weeks without suffering any injury, and forty thousand to fifty thousand can easily be accommodated. In the wooden boxes they live at such close quarters that their combative tendencies are easily excited; and to prevent them from mutilating each other, or repeating the experiment of the Kilkenny cats, the great claw is paralyzed by means of a wooden peg run through the lower joint. CHAPTER X. THE SHRIMP AND THE PRAWN. " Down on the shore, the sunny shore, Where the salt smell cheers the land ; Where the tide moves bright under countless light, And the surge on the glittering strand." ALLINGHAM. jjVERYBODY is familiar with the SHRIMP, both in its living condition, when it darts to and fro in the shallow waters, as if animated by some internal electricity, and as an edible, when, after boiling, it assumes a particularly agreeable flavour, and a not less agreeable colour. How many millions of this crustacean are devoured at the breakfast-tables and in the tea-gardens of London alone, to say nothing of our English watering-places, where " tea and shrimps " meets the eye at every corner, or of our larger cities, into which it is now introduced by the extant facilities of railway communication from all parts of the British coast, we cannot pretend to calculate. Think of Greenwich, Gravesend, Margate, Ramsgate, where nearly all your excursionists are seen provided with a bag of "shrimps"; think of your sea-side resorts, and the legions caught and consumed by professional and SHRIMP-FISHING. 229 amateur shrimp-fishers ; think of the gallons of " shrimp sauce " prepared by our British cooks j and own that the task of computation would defy even as expert an arith- metician as Cassio. In fact, he would be unable to obtain the data on which any accurate computation must neces- sarily be based. Enough to know that tens of thousands of gallons are consumed yearly; and that shrimp-fishing, therefore, deserves to be included amongst our staple in- dustries. Yet it would seem to produce no very tempt- ing return, the wholesale price of a gallon of shrimps not exceeding threepence or fourpence. A YOUNG SHRIMPER. " Shrimping," however, requires no very costly appar- atus. The net is a simple and inexpensive affair, consist- ing of a framework of wood, to which is attached a kind of reticulated pouch or bag ; and this the shrimper, by means of a long pole, drives before him, as he wades through the shallow water immediately inshore. No 230 ON THE NORMANDY COAST. skill is necessary ; an amateur, after an hour's practice, will catch as many of the agile and graceful crustaceans as a veteran fisherman. In fact, shrimping is pursued as a pastime at many of our watering-places. The Rams- gate holiday people make excursions for this purpose to Pegwell Bay ; and having caught their shrimps, according to Mrs. Glasse's famous injunction, boil them, and eat them. The regular shrimper, however, does not confine himself to the shallow waters which bathe the sandy shore, but keeps a boat, and frequents the more distant sand-banks, where, of course, the shoals are more numer- ous, and his spoil is greater. We borrow from a French author an interesting ac- count of the shrimp-fishery at Chausey, on the coast of Normandy. An old boat, turned upside down, at the foot of a weather-worn crag forms the roof of the fisher's cabin ; it rests upon four walls of stones rudely piled together, and embedded in clay for cement. Here, in a space of from four to twelve feet square, and three feet nine inches high, sleeps a whole family ; father and mother, sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, and often too some male and female friends, attracted by the occurrence of a high tide. The men fish for lobsters ; the shrimp-fishery, as less arduous, being abandoned to the women. Armed with their " putting-nets," and with petticoats looped up to the knees, and high Normandy caps covering their unkempt locks, they explore the windings of the sandy archipelago ; groping under the rocks, and wading through the pools, and collecting, if they are industrious, as much as five to six pounds weight in a day. This fishery, how- THE PUTTING-NET. 233 ever, can be carried on successfully only when the tides are tolerably high. The total product of the campaign will not exceed 480 to 750 Ibs. each person. NORMAN WOMEN FISHING FOR SHRIMPS. The putting-net "bouqueton," "truble," or "huxenau," as it is variously called is made exactly after the fashion of the net in use among our English shrimp-fishers. At Saiiit-G-illes-sur-Vic, in the department of La Vendee, the process adopted is very different. Here the net employed locally termed a " ret " (from the Latin rete ?) has no handle, and the opening is circular. It may be likened to one of the old-fashioned night-caps with which our forefathers disguised themselves, and forms a pocket or pouch, twenty to twenty-four inches in length, and fifty to sixty inches in circumference at the 234 THE FISHERMAN'S REWARD. mouth, suspended by the framework which keeps it open to a cord, and ballasted by a stone or lump of lead. Across the opening is carried a line, baited with fragments of crabs or heads of sardines. Provided with four or five of these rets, and with a coarse canvas bag slung round his neck, the fisherman starts after sunset or better still, after nightfall on a shrimping expedition. On arriving at a favourable spot, where the rocky shore is hollowed out in a labyrinth of beautiful weedy pools, each one a little world of strange and wonderful life, replete with graceful forms, and illu- minated with glowing colours, he sinks his rets at certain intervals ; allows them to lie untouched for some five or ten minutes, and then proceeds to capture the crustacean prowlers attracted to them by the bait. In this operation he is guided by the dexterity and knowledge which spring from practice. Much care is required in lifting each particular net, or it might be made to disgorge its prisoners too soon. But the experienced fisher raises them with- out difficulty, and gropes in the interior for his prey, which he transfers to his capacious bag, lining it with sea- weed to keep them alive. Having filled his bag, or the tide having ebbed, he wends his way homeward, and prepares his shrimps for delivery to the wholesale dealers. Over a lively fire he places an iron pot, filled with fresh water, and as soon as the water boils, pours in his stock of fish, adding about one pound of salt for every nine pounds of shrimps. After they have boiled for five minutes, he takes them out, spreads them on a table, and sprinkles them with salt water. This process deepens the beautiful rose-red tint which is so much admired by connoisseurs. OUT AT SEA. 235 Those fishermen who have boats put out to sea, and on arriving at a suitable distance from the shore drop anchor, and proceed to lower their nets all around them ; haul- ing them in as soon as they think they are tolerably well filled. SHRfMP-FISHtNG OUT AT SEA. Prawns are taken in a very similar manner ; only, in some localities, the fishermen make use of osier-baskets, or " pots," like those employed in catching lobsters and the nets are usually longer. The Shrimp (Crangon vulgaris) is a genus of crustaceans of the order Decapoda, the sub-order Macroura, and the family Crangonidce, allied to lobsters, cray-fish, and prawns. 236 ABOUT THE SHRIMP. It is so well known, that to describe it would be as super- fluous as to paint the lily j but shortness of its beak should be noticed as distinguishing it easily from the prawn. It is a delicate, almost transparent creature; endowed with such a wonderful vivacity of motion, that its leaps and turns in the crystal rock-pool almost defy observation. When alarmed, it buries itself in the sand by a peculiar effort of the tail-fin. In length it varies from two to three inches. There are several species ; the banded, the spinous, the two-spined, the three-spined ; but all are fit for the table. The PRAWN (Palcemon serratus) belongs to the same ABOUT THE PRAWN. 237 order and sub-order as the shrimp, but to a distinct family, the Palcemonidce ; and is characterized by the long serrated beak which projects from carapace. It its at- tains a length of from three to four inches, and though not so plentiful as the shrimp, is com- mon on our coasts. It is seldom found, however, in the rock-pools. As an edible, it is more highly esteemed than the shrimp, but is not so universally popular. There are numerous species, all of them very active and very voracious, and all remarkable for the number of times they change their skin ; an operation which practice does not seem to render easier, for, apparently, the work of exuviation is always accompanied with much distress. Prawns found in the warm seas of the south are of large size, and often of brilliant colouring : as, for instance, the Stenopus hispidus. Their habits are sufficiently curious to justify greater attention being paid to them than they have yet received. THE PRAWN. CHAPTER XL THE OYSTER. " The man had sure a palate covered o'er With brass or steel, that on the rocky shore First broke the ooey oyster's pearly coat, And risked the living morsel down his throat." flHERE can be no doubt that the OYSTER was the favourite shell-fish of the epicures of ancient Greece and Rome. The Greeks pro- cured it from Pelorus, Abydos, and Polarea ; the Romans, from Brindisi, the Lucrine Lake, Brittany, and the shores of Britain. We are inclined to agree with Dr. Doran, that the latter were hardly worthy of the deli- cacy, seeing that they abused it by mincing it up with mussels and sea-hedgehogs, stewing the whole with pine- almonds and pungent seasonings, and devouring the hetero- geneous compound scalding. dura Romanorum ilia I Their digestive powers must have almost approached those of an ostrich in efficiency. Other Romans, how- ever, were wise enough to eat them raw, a slave open- ing them at the table as fast as his master could devour them ; and the larger the fish, the more the " senatus populusque Romanus" appreciated them. Not only were OYSTER-ENTHUSIASTS. 239 they relished as a provocative before the feast, but, during the feast, whenever the appetite began to flag. The Bor- deaux oyster would seem to have been in favour with the emperors ; but the Rutupine bivalve, as caught on the coast of Kent, was also held in great esteem. It is to a Roman, Sergius Grata, that we owe the great invention of an oyster breeding-pond. The wealthy Lucullus had the sea-water brought to his celebrated villa from the Campanian coast, and kept his oysters alive in capacious reservoirs until they were required for the table. It is said of Yitellius that he devoured these delicious molluscs all day long. Cicero, the orator and philosopher and statesman, swallowed them by dozens; Seneca was not less partial to them ; nor was Calisthenes. If any of our readers are oyster-eaters, they are in the best of company. Oyster-enthusiasts have not been wanting in later times. Louis XI. annually entertained the learned doctors of the Sorbonne at an oyster-banquet. Shakespeare, who alludes, with fine poetic sympathy, to "an oyster crossed in love," and Cervantes, the creator of " Don Quixote," loved oysters : so did Helvetius, Raynal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Danton, Diderot, Robespierre, Dugald Stewart, Hume, Lord Jeffrey, Pope, Swift, Thomson, Professor Wilson. Bentley, most erudite of scholars, could never pass an oyster-shop ; the temptation always enticed him into it. Napoleon, before a great battle, cleared his perceptions and strengthened his judgment by partaking of the justly- celebrated bivalve ; and now-a-days our wits, however inferior in some respects to their predecessors, are fully their equals in the matter of oyster-suppers. They have, however, a great difficulty to contend with : oyster- suppers now-a-days are costly banquets ! (502) 1 Q 240 " PRECIOUS POWLDOWDIES." Who does not remember the numerous highly-appre- ciative allusions to the oyster in Wilson's " Noctes Am- brosianse " 1 For instance : " The Ettrick Shepherd (loquitur). As sure's death, there's the oysters ! O man, Awmrose [Ambrose, the landlord], but you've the pleasantest face o' ony man o' a' my acquaintance ! Here's ane as braid as a mush- room. This is Saturday nicht, and they've a' gotten their bairds shaved. There's a wee ane awa' doon my wrang throat ; but, deil a fears, it'll find its way into the stomach. " Tickler. They are, in truth, precious powldowdies."* Take a second example : " Hech, sirs ! but the month of September's the month after my ain heart, and worthy ony ither twa in the year comiii' upon you, as it does, after May, June, July, and August, wi' its r and eisters. ISTa, that brodd beats a' ilka shell as wide's my loof, ilka fish like a shot-star, and the tottle of the whole sooming in its ain saut-sea liccor, aneuch to create an appeteet in the palate of a skeleton ! " t And again : " I never, at ony time o' the year, hae recourse to the cruet till after the lang hunder ; and in September, after four months' fast frae the creturs, I can easily devour^them by theirsels just in their ain liccor, on till anither fifty ; and then, to be sure, just when I am beginning to be a wee stawed [surfeited], I apply first the pepper to a squad ; and then, after a score or twa in that way, some dizzin and a half wi' vinegar; and finish aff, like you, wi' a wheen to the mustard, till the brodd [board] is naething * Wilson, "Nodes Ambrosianse," i. 272. t Ibid., ii. 98. PILGRIMS' SCALLOP-SHELLS. 241 but shells There's really no end in nature to the eatin' of eisters."* According to an old proverb, " Whoever eats oysters on St. James's-day [July 25] will never want money." A recent writer, in explanation, of the saying, affirms that it is customary in London which we doubt to begin eating oysters on St. James's-day, when they are neces- sarily somewhat dearer than afterwards ; so that the pro- verb may be understood as a jocular encouragement to a little piece of extravagance and self-indulgence. We are more inclined to regard it as ironical : the epicure who can purchase oysters so long before the oyster-season begins, must needs be a man whose resources will raise him above want ! In connection with oysters and St. James's-day, we have the old association of the apostle with pilgrims' shells ; the scallop-shells which the " palmers " wore in their caps when bound on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James at Compostella. So says the old ballad : " And how should I know your true love From many an other one ? Oh, by his scallop-shell and hat, And by his sandal-shoon." A custom in London, now rapidly dying out, makes this relation more evident. In the course of the few days following upon the introduction of oysters for the season, the children of the humbler classes employ themselves diligently in collecting the shells which have been cast out from taverns and fish-shops ; and these they pile up in various rude devices. By the time that old St. Jaines's- day [August 5th] comes round, these little structures * Wilson, " Noctes Ambrosianae," ii. 107, 108. 242 AN ACT OF HEROISM. are all arranged in fantastic order, with bits of candle in the interior, to illuminate them at night ; and their archi- tects sally forth to greet each passer-by with the suppli- catory salutation, " Please, remember the grotto." It may not be doubted that we have here a relic of the old days of pilgrimages and saints, which has survived the changes of upwards of three hundred years. Buttes, in his " Dyet's Dry Dinner," published in 1599, says : " It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an r in their names, to eat an oister." And modern physiological research seems to have proved that oysters should not be eaten from May to August, inclusive. In the latter month, however, they always reappear in the London markets. According to an old adage, " He was a bold man who first ate an oyster." How the discovery was made of the edible qualities of this now famous mollusc, is thus plea- santly told by Mr. Bertram : * Once upon a time, he says, a man of melancholy mood was walking by the shores of a picturesque estuary, and listening to the murmur of the " sad sea-waves " or, as Mr. Disraeli would say, of the "melancholy main" when he espied a very old and ugly oyster-shell, all coated over with parasites and weeds. Its appearance was so unpre- possessing that he kicked it aside with his foot ; where- upon the mollusc, astonished at receiving such rude treat- ment on its own domain, gaped wide with indignation, preparatory to closing its bivalve still more closely. Seeing the beautiful cream-coloured layers that shone within the shelly covering, and fancying that the interior * Bertram, " Harvest of the Sea," pp. 342, 343. THE FIRST OYSTER-EATER. 243 of the shell itself was probably curious or beautiful, he lifted up the aged "native" for further examination, inserting his finger and thumb within the valves. The irate mollusc, thinking, no doubt, that this was intended as a further insult, snapped its nacreous portcullis close down upon his finger, causing him considerable pain. After relieving his wounded digit, our inquisitive gentle- man very naturally put it in his mouth. " Delightful !" he exclaimed, opening wide his eyes; "what is thisT' And again he sucked his finger. Then flashed upon him the great truth that he had discovered a new pleasure had, in fact, opened up to his fellows a source of im- measurable delight. He proceeded at once to realize the thought. With a stone he opened the oyster's threshold, and warily ventured on a piece of the mollusc itself. " Delicious !" he exclaimed ; and there and then, with no other condiment than its own juice, without the usual accompaniment, as we now take it, of " foaming brown stout " or " pale Chablis " to wash it down and, sooth to say, it requires neither did that solitary, nameless man indulge in the first oyster-banquet ! Scientifically speaking, the oyster (Ostrcea edulis) is an acephalous 'mollusc ; so called, because it has no distinct head, and having no head, can have no brain, though, singular to tell, it rejoices in a beard. Having no head, it has no organ of sight, no organ of hearing, no organ of smell. Nor has it any organ of loco- motion. It is, therefore, an animal of the simplest organization ; one might almost say, merely the outline or rudiments of an animal. However, it has a large and expansible mouth ; a stomach like a pouch or pocket, 244 INTERNAL ORGANIZATION. with very thin sides ; intestines ; a good-sized liver, in the substance of which the said stomach and intestines are enclosed ; branchiae \ a heart, possessing both auricle and ventricle, and surrounding the rectum, on which two great vessels abut, and from which an aortic trunk issues, divided into three branches one for the mouth, another for the supply of the liver and digestive organs, and a third for the remainder of the body. The blood of the oyster is colourless. The mollusc adheres to the two valves of its shell by means of a strong muscle (the " adductor ") situated near the middle of its body. But though the organization of the oyster is apparently imperfect, it is complete so far as it goes, and possesses at least the indication of organs which, in beings of a more complex type, serve a loftier purpose, and point out the beginnings of Nature, enabling the thoughtful observer to understand her onward course, from the simplest outlines of animal life to the admirable human machine. We have spoken of the " mouth " of the oyster ; this is a kind of trunk or snout, with lips remarkable for ten- uity ; it lacks both jaws and teeth. The lungs or gills are foliated coverings extended over the surface of the body, so as to protect the air necessary to the animal's existence from the action of the water. These lamelli- ferm gills are provided with membraneous plates, which act as capillary funnels, open at the furthest extremities. The circulating vessels open into muscular cavities, which play the part of the heart. There is no " foot," locomotion being accomplished by the alternate opening and closure of the shells. The animal secures its food by means of its beard, which acts somewhat after the manner of a rake. MOVEMENTS OF THE OYSTER. 245 As everybody knows, the oyster is a marine mollusc. It lives close to the shore, and in comparatively shallow water ; attaching itself to the rock, to one of its own kind, or to any object calculated to afford it the support it re- quires. Here its sole exercise would seem to consist in opening and closing its valves ; its only pleasure in eat- A GROUP OF OYSTERS. ing. Its food is brought within its reach, to some extent, by the motion of the waves, and is formed of animal mat- ter held suspended in the water. Though emphatically a marine mollusc, yet M. Beudant proved, by experiments made in 1816, that it may be trained to live in fresh- water streams. 246 VALUE OF THE OYSTER. The oyster, as food, is wholesome, light, and easily digested. An eminent French writer has characterized it as pre-eminently adapted for dyspeptics, from its pecu- liar success in nourishing and healing a feeble or irritated stomach. Persons may eat considerable quantities, and not only not suffer any inconvenient effects, but enjoy their dinner afterwards, as if their appetite had been positively stimulated by the introductory repast. We have not met, however, with any modern oyster-eater worthy of being compared with Yitellius, who ate four meals a day, and devoured at each meal, it is said, twelve hundred oysters ! Certainly, in the annals of modern gastronomy a Doctor Gastaldi is celebrated for his daily absorption of thirty to forty dozen ; but the interval be- tween the Italian physician and the Roman emperor is very wide indeed. Oysters begin to sicken about the end of April, and during the hot months are engaged in depositing their spawn. They do not leave their ova, as is the case with many marine creatures, to be hatched independently ; but pro- tect them for several weeks between the folds of their mantle and the laminae of their lungs. Here they remain surrounded by a mucous matter which assists their development ; this matter, with its accumulated ova, gradually losing its fluidity, and changing successively to a light shade of yellow, gray, brown, and violet ; the last- named indicating that the embryonic condition of the ova is nearly at an end. Then comes the happy moment of release ; and nothing, says a French authority, is more curious than the spectacle of a bank of oysters at the ABOUT THE SPAWN. 247 spawning-season. Each adult individual sheds its own cloud of progeny. A living dust is, as it were, exhaled from the crowded oyster-bank, disturbing the water, and communicating to it a dense foggy appearance ; and this dust gradually spreads abroad, until it is scattered far away from its focus of production. Unless the " spat," as the spawn is technically called, encounters some solid body to which it can adhere, it inevitably falls a victim to the voracity of the numerous enemies which prey upon it. The state of the weather is also an important con- sideration, as a cold day will kill the spat. The quantity of spawn produced by a single oyster is not very accurately known. Some authorities count by millions ; others estimate the season's product at five or six hundred thousand. Mr. Bertram says that he has examined oyster-spawn, taken direct from the oyster, under a powerful microscope ; he describes it as a liquid of some little consistency, in w^hich the young oysters, like the points of a hair, sw r im actively about, in great numbers, as many as a thousand being distinguishable in a very minute globule of spat. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the fecundity of this wonderful hermaphrodite, but it is much modified by variations of temperature. If the breeding-season be not mild and genial, the fall of spat is only partial. On finally taking leave of the parent shell, the young oyster is provided with a locomotive apparatus ; a kind of pad or cushion, surrounded by vibratory . YOUNG OYSTER. cilise, and set in motion by certain powerful muscles. Hence it is able to swim about freely in search of a resting-place and this once found, a 248 AN OYSTER'S LONGEVITY. shelly bottom is best, the pad disappears. But it is a mistake to suppose that the adult individual is incapable of progress. Diquemarc says that it can transport itself from place to place by the simple process of absorbing sea- water and ejecting it violently from between its valves. And thus it defends itself against its enemies among the minor Crustacea ; particularly the smaller crabs, which endeavour to enter its shell when the valves are partly open. There is reason to suppose, moreover, that our favourite mollusc is not altogether so dull and inert as the earlier naturalists represented it. Oysters exposed, says Diquemarc, to the daily ebb and now of the tide, seem aware that they are likely to be exposed to dryness at certain recurring periods, and con- sequently retain a supply of water in their shells to serve their need when the tide is out. This is true, however, of those oysters only which are found close in-shore. The longevity of the oyster is another point on which our information is not very exact ; but many authorities allow it a " span " of twelve years. The young oyster, at the end of three days, measures three lines in diameter ; at the end of a month it is as big as a pea ; in six months it is as large as a half-crown. In three years the best oysters are large enough for sale. Such, at least, is M. Coste's calculation ; but the rate of growth varies in different localities. The oyster on the Yellette bank does not acquire its full proportions in a shorter period than five years ; in the bay of Cancale it comes to maturity in eighteen months. There are several oyster-farms in the Thames all con- ducted on much the same principles. That at Queens- OYSTER-BEDS IN THE THAMES. 249 borough, in the Isle of Sheppey, is famous for producing the Milton oysters, which are of good size and excellent flavour. The Faversham Company is reputed to be the most ancient in the Thames. There are many beds belong- ing to private gentlemen. Of these Mr. Allston is the largest owner; and he employs from forty to fifty vessels some being merely dredging vessels of eight or ten tons, and others, smacks of thirty, forty, or fifty tons, which carry young oysters, for breeding purposes, from Ireland and the Channel Islands. The largest and most fertile are those of Whitstable. They belong to a kind of joint-stock company of fisher- men, into which there is, however, no other way of en- trance but by birth, since none but the "freedredgermen" of the town can hold shares. When a proprietor dies, his interest in the company dies with him ; but his widow, if he leaves one, obtains a pension. The public and private oyster-beds at Whitstable employ upwards of three thousand hands, and their returns have been estimated at from 100,000 to 120,000 per annum. The affairs of the company are regulated by twelve directors, who are known as " the jury." The area occupied by the " lay- ings " measures fully a mile and a half square, and from their long-continued prosperity have received the name of the " happy fishing-grounds." The business of the company is to feed oysters for the London and other markets ; therefore they do not breed them. They buy the spat or brood in various quarters, and then lay it down in their grounds to grow and fatten. Sometimes, it is true, the company's own oysters produce a spat ; namely, when the spawn, or " fiotsom," as the dredgers call it, emitted from their own beds chances to 250 THE COLNE FISHING COMPANY. fall upon their own grounds ; and then the company profit largely, as they are enabled to save purchases of brood to the extent of what has fallen. But this falling of the spat is, to a great degree, accidental. No rule can be laid down whether the oysters will spawn in any particu- lar year, or where the spawn may be carried. Of late, however, the artificial contrivances in use in France and elsewhere for saving the spawn have been introduced at Whitstable, and it seems probable that oyster- cultivation will be conducted there on the most approved principles. The system of management adopted by the Thames companies is very simple. Take, for example, the Colne Fishery Company. This is superintended by a jury of twelve, appointed by a functionary called the water- bailiff; whose appointment, by the way, is in the hands of the corporation of Colchester. At the beginning of the season the jurors hold a meeting, take stock of the oysters in hand, and then agree upon the prices at which sales may be made during the season. They also settle the price to be paid to the dredgermen for lifting them, which is so much per wash the name of a local measure. The company's foreman apportions to the dredgers their daily stint; which, of course, varies with the demand, and ranges from three to twelve wash. The time occupied in the work seldom exceeds a couple of hours, and the remainder of the day is at the man's own disposal. Further, many of these dredgers are good divers, and thus they secure double employment. The wages of the professional dredgers are very good; from three to six shillings per wash. They pay one-fourth of what they earn for their boat, and divide the rest among the crew. OYSTERS IN THE FORTH. 251 Of late years there has been a tendency to rise in the dredgers' wages, as in the wages of all other operatives. In the Firth of Forth the organization is very defective ; and though the firth has been rightly described as " one great oyster-bed," the supply of oysters is far below the demand, and. what ought to be an important industry seems in a fair way of perishing. From Inch (island) Muckra to Cockenzie, the oyster-beds extend over a length of twenty miles, and range from one mile to three miles in breadth. The bivalves are of excellent quality ; parti- cularly those called Pandores, which are obtained off Prestonpans. It is said that their fine flavour is owing to the refuse water which escapes from the neighbouring salt-pans. The beds producing them are now greatly neglected. From inquiries made quite recently, we can- not find that any system, of cultivation is pursued, or that they are under any careful or enlightened management. Large quantities of the brood are sent southwards to supply the oyster-beds in the estuary of the Thames. We agree with a writer in the Cornhill Magazine, that " the wholesale spoliation now going on at the oyster-beds of the Firth of Forth is greatly to be regretted, although we think it is destined to work its own cure, for the beds once thoroughly exhausted from the over-dredging which is now going on and it is so great that the oysters con- sumed in Edinburgh will soon have to be brought from London will in all probability be given over to persons to restock on the plan now so popular on the Continent, and the fishermen be very properly deprived of the chance of ever again despoiling them." This was written ten years ago, but as yet no improvement has been effected. The Firth of Forth seems to have been "intended by 252 IRISH OYSTER-BEDS. nature," says an enthusiast, for the laying down of oyster-farms : every inch of the bottom of that estuary might be lined thick with oysters from Alloa to North Berwick, and a thousand oyster-farmers carry on a highly remunerative business. Turning to Ireland, we find that its people are begin- ning to recognize the resources of their seaboard, and that numerous applications have been made of late years for the formation of oyster-beds on various parts of the coast. The result has been that some six thousand to seven thousand acres have been granted by the Fishery Com- missioners to several persons for the purposes of oyster- farming. The authority to whom we have already been indebted remarks, in reference to the Irish oyster-fisheries, as a curious fact, that although the Irish " natives " had at one time a very bad reputation, all the great banks have been cleaned out by over-fishing. Thus, the cele- brated Carlingford beds, the beds of Sligo, and the banks of Clare, have been exhausted, owing to the culpable ignorance of the fishers, who have yearly reaped without sowing, and yet continued to expect an abundant harvest ! On the famous Tralee beds it is declared to be difficult to find a shell ; while some of the remaining beds have been nearly exhausted by the transportation of the young oysters to the English banks. It is recorded, as the opinion of a distinguished Thames oyster-farmer, who has carefully surveyed the Irish coast, that it contains many excellent spots for the laying down of oyster-beds, and that a considerable commerce might be carried on, if not in oysters for consumption, at any rate in brood for the Thames oyster companies. From what we have said, the reader will understand OYSTER-DREDGING. 255 that oyster-farming is an industry which must be regu- lated by certain fixed principles ; but that, if these prin- ciples are observed, the supply of oysters may be increased almost indefinitely, to the great advantage of our food- resources, and the direct benefit of a large portion of our coast population. Much has been done in this direction, but even now a deplorable ignorance prevails on a subject which is really of national importance ; and people appear oblivious of the evident truth that the treasures of the sea require to be as carefully and intelligently utilized as the treasures of the land ! We now come to the various methods of oyster-fishing. In some localities this is conducted after a very primitive fashion. At Majorca divers descend into the water, armed with a hammer, and detach the molluscs, one by one, from their resting-places. Obviously, such a process is adapted only for places where oyster consumption does not exist on a large scale, and where human labour is very cheap. In England and France, as in the United States, the oyster-fishery is carried on by dredging : the dredge (or drogue) being a kind of iron rake, equipped with a net, and attached to the stern of the fishing-boat by a long tow-rope. The oyster-smack presses forward under full sail ; the dredge harries and sweeps the bank of molluscs, which, as they are torn from the rocky bottom, fall into the open net. To prevent an " oyster-bed " from being exhausted, it is generally divided into a certain number of zones, each of which is fished in due succession ; and thus, while one is being worked, the oysters in the others are enabled to multiply, and grow to a proper size. Fishing is illegal (502) ] 7 256 FATTENING THE MOLLUSCS. during the months of May, June, July, and August, when the bivalve is depositing its spawn. When first removed from their habitat, oysters, how- ever, do not possess in their highest perfection the proper- ties which are so much esteemed by oyster-eaters; and to render them fatter, more tender, and more savoury, they are deposited, before being sent to market, in " parks " of from three to four feet deep, the bottom of which consists of sand or pebbles, with gently sloping sides, and communicating with the sea by means of a channel or trench which is easily shut or opened. In some " parks " the water is renewed every tide : in others, only once or twice a month. The celebrated oyster-parks at Marennes, Treport, Etretat, Fecamp, and Dunkirk, belong to the former category ; those at Havre and Dieppe to the latter. The period during which the bivalves undergo the fattening process varies from a few days to a month. Under certain conditions, they acquire a greenish colour- ing, as well as that piquant flavour to which the epicure is so partial. A French authority M. Yalmont de Bomare appar- ently supposing that oysters feed upon grass, enunciated the hypothesis that the colour of the "green oyster" can be produced only in " parks " freely surrounded by vege- tation ; an hypothesis which it is quite unnecessary to examine with any degree of seriousness. Another French writer M. Gaillon attributes it to a microscopic ani- malcule, the Vibrio ostearius, on which the mollusc feeds; but it has been proved that the vibrio is not normally green, and becomes so only under the same conditions as the oyster. Bory de St. Vincent thought it arose from ABOUT OYSTER-CULTURE. 257 the " green matter " of Priestley, which may be detected in all water exposed to the action of light. Some authorities have sought for the cause in the con- fervce and relvce which multiply so rapidly in those " parks" where the supply of water is not frequently renewed ; others think that the colouring principle belongs to the soil. The most likely explanation seems to be that which M. Coste, the distinguished pisciculturist, has put forward. He is of opinion that the green oyster owes its peculiar tint and characteristic flavour to a " disease of the liver." Such is also the belief of M. Valenciennes; according to whom, the immediate cause of the discoloration is a peculiar animal substance, due to a particular condition of the oyster. The largely increased demand for this favourite mol- lusc, and the gradual exhaustion of many of the best oyster-banks, have led to the adoption of artificial means of increasing the supply. The art, or science, of oyster- culture was introduced, as we have seen, by a wealthy Roman, named Sergius Grata, who in his time was famed for his epicurean tastes, and attained the curious title of " master of luxury." He was something more, however, than a gourmand, for Cicero speaks of him as " ditissimus, anio3nissimus, deliciosissimus." It is said of him that he patriotically asserted the superiority of the shell-fish bred in the Lucrine Lake ; though, under the empire, they were less valued than those imported from Britain. He owed his surname, Grata, or Aurata, either to his fondness for gold-fish (Auratce pisces), or to his habit of wearing two very large gold rings. 258 " OYSTER-FARMS " IN ITALY. From the artificial oyster-beds which this ingenious and refined gentleman laid down at Baise, he derived a con- siderable revenue. He had his enemies, however, and was brought to trial on a charge of having appropriated . the public waters of the Lucrine Lake to his own private behoof. He obtained an acquittal ; and we are told that his advocate, L. Cassius, in the course of his pleading, observed, that the revenue officers who had interfered with his client were greatly mistaken if they thought he would be deprived of his cherished molluscs, when driven from the Lacus Lucrinus ; rather than endure such a loss, his client would breed them on the roofs of his houses ! We wish he had essayed the experiment, and succeeded in it ; for then, perhaps, every householder might now be growing his own stock of oysters for private consump- tion. One of the earliest seats of oyster-culture is Lake Fusaro, in the south of Italy ; it is the Avernus, the lake of gloom and desolation, which Virgil has described in such exaggerated language. It is a black-looking sheet of water, occupying the crater of an extinct volcano, the steep and rugged sides of which, rising precipitously around it, invest it with a strikingly sombre character. It was probably this circumstance, associated with the sulphur- eous and mephitic odours which pervade the neighbour- hood, that induced the Greeks to conceive of it as the entrance to the infernal regions and the scene of the visit of Odysseus to the lower world. It measures about three miles in circumference, and is situated between the Lucrine Lake and the ruins of the ancient city of Cuma3. A canal, from eight to ten feet in breadth, and four to five AT LAKE FUSARO. 259 feet in depth, connects it with the sea. It is now called the Foce di Fusaro. The reader will have understood, from our remarks on the oyster's mode of reproduction, the importance that its ova or spat should be deposited on some solid object. This principle was kept in view when Lake Fusaro was converted into an " oyster-farm." Upon the bed of the lake, and along its margin, small pyramidal piles of stones have been erected, on which are CHAIN OF SUSPENDED FAGOTS. deposited the young oysters imported from the neighbour- ing Gulf of Otranto. Each heap is surrounded by a ring of piles, driven in close to one another, and rising slightly above the surface of the water. Other piles are set in long rows, and bound together by ropes, to which fagots of young wood hang suspended. In the spawning-season, which begins early in May, the oysters on the artificial rockeries shed the thousands of spat carefully incubated 260 OYSTER-BREEDING IN ENGLAND. in the laminae of their lungs and the folds of their mantle. The suspended fagots arrest the floating ova before they can be carried away by the waves, and they are thus able to develop themselves under siiitable conditions of light, sustenance, temperature, and safety. When the fishing- season arrives, the piles and fagots surrounding the beds are removed, and the oysters fit for market are duly gathered. Oyster-farms have been established in England for many years, but it is only of late that oyster-breeding has been scientifically conducted. The "art" has been taken up in Ireland, where, indeed, every condition for its successful cultivation exists. The decay of the Irish oyster-fisheries was so serious as to excite the attention of Government, and in October 1868 the Lord-Lieutenant appointed a Commission, consisting of Messrs. Blake, M.P., Francis, Hart, and Brady, to inquire how the evil might be remedied, and what improved methods of oyster- cultivation should be introduced. This Commission has led to important results, and it may be hoped that the oyster-fisheries of Ireland will rapidly increase in com- mercial importance. The report of the Commissioners, we may add, contains much useful matter, and treats of some collateral questions which deserve the reader's attention.* For instance, they dwell on the preference given in France to the green oysters, which leads to the importa- tion on a large scale of the Essex oysters. Oysters with green beards, they say, do not owe their colour to copper, but to their peculiar feeding, and they suggest that the diatomacese are probably the cause. They point out that * Report of the Commission,