Chapter X: Part 10

A schull of the striped bass, 500 or 600 in number, weighing from 4 to 8 lbs. each, have often been taken at one haul of the net, in New Brunswick. They ascend fresh-water streams for shelter during the winter, and were formerly taken in large quantities in the Richibucto and Miramichi rivers. The fish gathered in large shoals, lying in a dull, torpid state under the ice, and holes being cut, they were taken in nets in immense numbers, corded up stiff on the ice, like fire-wood, and sent off in sled-loads to Fredericton and St. John.

The chub is usually considered a coarse fish, but those of large size, eaten fresh, are very palatable. Mr. Yarrell says, ‘that boiling chub with the scales on is the best mode of preparing it for table.’

‘The brook-trout of America’ (_Salmo fontinalis_), says Mr. Herbert, ‘is one of the most beautiful creatures in form, colour, and motion that can be imagined. There is no sportsman, actuated by the true animus of the pursuit, who would not prefer basketing a few brace of good trout, to taking a cart-load of the coarser and less game denizens of the water. His wariness, his timidity, his extreme cunning, the impossibility of taking him in clear and much fished waters, except with the slenderest and most delicate tackle--his boldness and vigour after being hooked, and his excellence on the table, place him without dispute next to the salmon alone, as the first of fresh-water fishes. The pursuit of him leads into the loveliest scenery of the land, and the season at which he is fished for is the most delightful portion of the year.’

The sea-trout of the basin of Bonaventura are of large size, 3 lbs. and upwards, brilliantly white, in fine condition, very fine and well flavoured.

The summer gaspereaux, or alewives, (_Alosa tyrannus_) are an exceedingly fat fish, and well flavoured; the only objection to them is their oily richness. Besides their being fatter, they are smaller and more yellow in colour than the spring fish.

To the epicure, a fresh caught salmon-trout of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, especially early in the season, will always afford a rich treat. The flesh is of a brilliant pink colour, and most excellent: its exceeding fatness early in the season, when it first enters the mixed water of the estuaries, is such that it can be preserved fresh but a very short time. The sportsman will find it a thoroughly game fish; rising well at a brilliant fly of scarlet ibis and gold, and affording sport second only to salmon fishing. In some parts of the Gulf they have been caught weighing 5 to 7 lbs.

That beautiful and savoury fish, the smelt, is a great table delicacy with us; but on the Gulf coasts of New Brunswick, large quantities are used every season merely for manure.

As food, the skate is held in very different degrees of estimation in different places. In London, large quantities are consumed, and crimped skate is considered delicate and well flavoured; but on some parts of the English coast, although caught in considerable numbers, the flesh is seldom eaten, and is only used for baiting lobster pots. The French are great consumers of the skate; and its flesh is used extensively both at New York and Boston. By many it is deemed a great delicacy. After the fish is skinned, the fleshy part of the huge pectoral fins, which is beautifully white, is cut into long thin slips, about an inch wide; these are rolled like ribbon, and dressed in that form.

The capelan (_Mallotus villosus_), the smallest species of the salmon family, possesses like the smelt the cucumber smell, but it differs from the smelt in never entering fresh-water streams. As an article of bait for cod, and other fish of that class, the capelan is a fish of much importance; whenever abundant, the cod-fishing is excellent. It has been found as far north in the arctic region as man has yet penetrated; and it forms so important an article of food in Greenland, that it has been termed the daily bread of the natives. In Newfoundland, it is dried in large quantities, and exported to London, where it is sold principally in the oyster shops.

The large, flat-fish known as the halibut (_Hippoglossus vulgaris_), which sometimes attains the weight of 300 lbs, is often taken by the cod-fishers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. These fish are cut in slices, and pickled in barrels, in which state they sell at half the price of the best herrings. The flesh, though white and firm, is dry, and the muscular fibres coarse. The fins and flaps are however esteemed delicacies.

The mackerel of the British North American coasts is of a much finer flavour than those caught on the shores of Europe.

The salmon are also noted for their very fine flavour.

If there are no turbot, brill, or sole, in the St. Lawrence, there are other delicacies. A species of eel is exceedingly abundant and frequently of large size. One of these, a sea-eel, split, salted, and smoked, without the head, was 30 inches in length, and 15 inches in diameter, breadth as split, nearly the size of an ordinary smoked salmon and quite as thick. 300 barrels of large eels, taken with the spear in the Buctouche river, are usually salted-down for winter use. They are generally excessively fat, the flesh very white and exceedingly well flavoured. Packages of eels have been lately imported into London from Prince Edward’s Island. Smoked eels are very delicious, and they have even begun to preserve these fish thus at Port Phillip.

The fisheries of the North American lakes and rivers are not prosecuted as they might be, but are beginning to receive more attention. The white-fish (_Corregonus albus_) is found in all the deep lakes west of the Mississippi, and indeed from Lake Erie to the Polar Sea. That which is taken in Leech Lake is said by amateurs to be more highly flavoured than even that of Lake Superior. There is another species of this fish, called by the Indians tuliby or ottuniby (_Corregonus artidi_), which resembles it, but is much less esteemed. Both species furnish a wholesome and palatable food.

The French Canadians call this fish _Poisson Pointu_, and the English term them ‘gizzard fish.’ The origin of the latter name appears to be, that the fish feeds largely on fresh-water shell fish and shelly molluscs; and its stomach thereby gains an extraordinary thickness, and resembles the gizzard of a fowl. The stomach, when cleaned and boiled, is a favourite morsel with the Canadian voyageurs.

The white-fish of the bays and lakes of Canada is represented to be the finest fish in the world by the Canadians. The flavour of it is incomparable, especially when split open and fried with eggs and crumbs of bread. They weigh on the average about 2 lbs. each when cleaned--100 of them filling a good sized barrel. Those caught in Lake Huron are more highly prized than any others.

Several Indian tribes mainly subsist upon this fish, and it forms the principal food at many of the fur posts for eight or nine months of the year, the supply of other articles of diet being scanty and casual. Its usual weight in the northern regions is from 2 to 3 lbs., but it has been taken in the clear, deep, and cold waters of Lake Huron, of the weight of 13 lbs. The largest seen in the vicinity of Hudson’s Bay weighed between 4 and 5 lbs., and measured 20 inches in length, and 4 in depth. One of 7 lbs. weight, caught in Lake Huron, was 27 inches long.

Among other species of fish that inhabit these great inland seas are the mashkinonge, or mashkilonge, the pike or jack, the pickerel or gilt carp, the perch, and a species of trout called by the Chippeways, namogus.

A huge mashkilonge, so ravenous is its propensities, is often caught from the stern of a steamer in full speed, by throwing out a strong line with a small tin fish attached. A marked peculiarity of most of the Lake fish is the quantity of fat, resembling that of quadrupeds, which they contain, entirely different from the salt-water fish--while their flavor differs from that of the latter, being much more delicate and white than that of river fish.

Lake Superior abounds with fish, particularly trout, sturgeon, and white-fish, which are caught at all seasons and in large quantities. Of these the trout, weighing from 12 to 50 lbs., and the white-fish, weighing often over 20 lbs., are perhaps the most important.

The salmon trout are equally large, weighing from 10 to 70 lbs.

Lake Champlain also abounds with fish, among which are salmon, lake-shad, pike, and other fish.

The reciprocity treaty has given a new field to the fisheries on the Canada side of Lake Huron. Some 200 American fishermen are now engaged within fifty miles each side of Goderich in the business. This has greatly stimulated the Cannucks, and it is estimated 400 of them are now engaged in the same business. About 100 miles of the Lake shore is lined with gill nets and seines. Every boat that comes in has a large number of salmon-trout from 30 to 50 lbs. weight. White-fish are very large. The fish caught at Collingwood terminus of the northern railway, from Toronto, are packed in ice, and go to Oswego, Rome, Utica, Albany, and New York. Great quantities taken at Goderich go in ice from thence to Cleveland and Cincinnati.

The Toronto and Oswego markets are supplied with fish from Collingwood, and a well organized company, with nets, ice-houses, &c., might do a fine business by supplying the New York, Boston, and other American markets, daily with trout, bass, and white-fish from the waters of Georgian Bay.

Fishing with the scoop net is the most laborious of all modes of fishing. It was found in practice at the Sault St. Marie by the Baron De Hortan, when he penetrated to that point in 1684. It has been practised ever since, because it is the only mode by which the white-fish can be taken. They go there to feed and not to spawn; the bottom of the river is a rocky broken ground, and the current runs at the rate of 12 miles per hour; the eddy in which the fish are found is of small circuit, and only one canoe at a time can enter it. The canoe is forced into it by setting poles. The man in the bow has a scoop net, the handle to which is about 15 feet in length. He has only time to make one stroke with the scoop, the next instant the canoe is whirled away by the current far below the point where the stroke was made.

The plunge of the scoop may be successful or not according to chance; one fish or half-a-dozen may be taken, or very frequently none. As soon as one canoe is thus swept away, another one supplies its place, and in this manner some eight or ten canoes in rapid succession take their turn. Canoes are used because, being lighter, they can be forced up where it would not be possible to put a boat. Even though the white-fish would take the hook, still in such rapid water it could not be used.

Again, the character of nearly the whole of the coasts of Lakes Huron and Superior forbids any other mode of fishing than by gill nets.

Gill nets are often set in 60 feet of water, and the fish cannot be taken at such localities in any other mode, except at some seasons of the year when they will take the hook.

Again, there are localities along Lake Superior, where fish such as the rock sturgeon and mashkilonge can only be taken with the spear, and that in 30 feet water; the bottom is so disturbed, distorted, upheaved, and broken by volcanic action, that gill nets cannot be used, and the fish can only be reached in the hollows, crevices, and chasms of the rock where they lie, by means of a spear, which is thrown and has a line attached to the extremity.

The _Lake Superior Journal_ says:--‘Angling through the ice to a depth of 30 fathoms of water is a novel mode of fishing somewhat peculiar to this peculiar region of the world. It is carrying the war into fishdom with a vengeance, and is denounced, no doubt, in the communities on the bottoms of these northern lakes as a scaly piece of warfare. The large and splendid salmon-trout of these waters have no peace; in the summer they are enticed into the deceitful meshes of the gill-net, and in the winter, when they hide themselves in the deep caverns of the lakes, with fifty fathoms of water above their heads, and a defence of ice two or three feet in thickness on the top of that, they are tempted to destruction by the fatal hook. Large numbers of these trout are caught every winter in this way on Lake Superior. The Indian, always skilled in the fishing business, knows exactly where to find them and how to kill them. The whites make excursions out on the Lake in pleasant weather to enjoy this sport. There is a favourite resort for both fish and fishermen near Gros Cap, at the entrance of Lake Superior, through the rocky gateway between Gros Cap and Point Iroquois, about 18 miles above the Sault, and many a large trout at this point is pulled up from its warm bed at the bottom of the Lake in winter, and made to bite the cold ice in this upper world. To see one of these fine fish, four or five feet in length, and weighing half as much as a man, floundering on the snow and ice, weltering and freezing to death in its own blood, oftentimes moves the heart of the fisherman to expressions of pity. The _modus operandi_ in this kind of great trout fishing is novel in the extreme, and could a stranger to the business overlook at a distance a party engaged in the sport, he would certainly think they were mad, or each one making foot-races against time. A hole is made through the ice, smooth and round, and the fisherman drops down his large hook, baited with a small herring, pork, or other meat, and when he ascertains the right depth, he waits--with fisherman’s luck--some time for a bite, which in this case is a pull altogether, for the fisherman throws the line over his shoulders and walks from the hole at the top of his speed till the fish bounds out on the ice. I have known of as many as fifty of these splendid trout caught in this way by a single fisherman in a single day; it is thus a great source of pleasure and a valuable resource of food, especially in Lent; and the most scrupulous anti-pork believers might here ‘down pork and up fish’ without any offence to conscience.’

The Cleveland _Plain-dealer_ has a lengthy account of the trade of the house of J. M. Craw and Son, of that city. It says:--‘At the warehouse, 133, River street, in this city, is a grand depôt of its receipts. From this place large supplies of salt provisions, fisherman’s tackle, seines, lines, and everything needed on the coasts of the upper lakes, are forwarded. At Washington Harbour, in Green Bay, engagements are made with the fishermen of 118 boats, each of which has a head fisherman, who has his crew engaged in fishing. Over 300 men are constantly engaged, spring and fall, in that locality in catching, packing, and forwarding fish. Similar settlements of fishermen are scattered all along the coasts of Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron, and Erie. The number of varieties of Lake fish fit for packing is large, including white-fish, siskawit, trout, pickerel, cat-fish, bass, herring, perch, shad, and bayfish. The amount of fish received by Craw and Son, in 1856, exceeded 14,000 barrels, and as their receipts this year from Lake Michigan will be about 6,000 barrels, an increased aggregate is anticipated. This large amount is so much added to the food of the country, and constitutes an important addition to its wealth. From the details of this single house we may learn something of the extent of the entire trade.’

In the Baikal Lake, Siberia, there is a fish (_Callyonimus Baicalensis_) from four to six inches long, so very fat, that it melts before the fire like butter. It yields an oil sold to great advantage to the Chinese.

The _Lake Superior Journal_, of October 27, notices the arrival of a 100 barrels of the famous siskawit from Isle Royale, and learns from one of the fishermen that there have been caught this season between 300 and 400 barrels of this fish, together with a few trout and white fish. They fish on that island for this fish principally, as the siskawit are worth as much again as whitefish and mackinac trout in the lake markets.--The siskawit is said to be the fattest fish that swims, either in fresh or salt water. The fishermen assert, that one of these fish, when hung up by the tail in the hot sun of a summer day, will melt and entirely disappear, except the bones. In putting up about 50 barrels this season, one of the fishermen made two and a half barrels of oil from the heads and ‘leaf fat’ alone, without the least injury to the marketableness of the fish. Besides this leaf fat, the fat or oil is disseminated ‘in a layer of fat and a layer of lean’ throughout the fish. They are too fat to be eaten fresh, and are put up for market like whitefish and trout.

‘Fish being here very scarce,’ (Falls of the Uaupés,) ‘we were obliged,’ says Mr. Wallace, ‘to live almost entirely on fowls, which, though very nice when well roasted, and with the accompaniment of ham and gravy, are rather tasteless, simply boiled or stewed, with no variation in the cookery, and without vegetables.

‘I had now got so thoroughly into the life of this part of the country, that like everybody else here, I preferred fish to every other article of food. One never tires, and I must again repeat, that I believe there are fish here superior to any in the world.

‘Our fowls cost us about a penny each, paid in fish-hooks or salt, so that they are not such expensive food as they would be at home. In fact, if a person buys his hooks, salt, and other things in Para, where they are about half the price they are in Barra, the price of a fowl will not exceed a halfpenny; and fish, pacovas, and other eatables that this country produces, in the same proportion.

‘Many of the fish of the Rio Negro are of a most excellent flavour, surpassing anything I have tasted in England, either from the fresh or the salt waters; and many species have real fat, which renders the water they are boiled in a rich and agreeable broth. Not a drop of this is wasted, but with a little pepper and farinha is all consumed, with as much relish as if it were the most delicate soup.’[29]

Pirarucú, the dried fish, which with farinha forms the chief subsistence of the native population of Brazil, and in the interior is the only thing to be obtained, resembles in appearance nothing eatable, looking as much like a dry cow-hide, grated up into fibres, and dressed into cakes, as anything I can compare it with. When eaten, it is boiled or slightly roasted, pulled to pieces and mixed with vinegar, oil, pepper, onions, and farinha, and altogether forms a very savoury mess for a person with a good appetite and a strong stomach.

If we pass to the Pacific coasts of South America, we find the most esteemed fish are the robalo, the corvino, the lisa, and the king-fish.

The robalo (_Esox Chilensis_, _Hemiramphus Brazillensis_ of Cuvier,) is nearly of a cylindrical form, and from two to three feet long. It is coated with angular scales of a golden colour upon the back, and silver on the belly; the fins are soft and without spines, the tail is truncated, and the back marked longitudinally with a blue stripe, bordered with yellow. The flesh is very white, almost transparent, light, and of a delicious taste. Those taken upon the Araucanian coast are the most in repute, where they are sometimes caught of eight pounds weight. The Indians of Chiloe smoke them, after having cleaned and soaked them for 24 hours in sea water, and, when sufficiently dry, pack them up in casks of 100 each, which are generally sold for about three dollars. The robalo prepared in this manner is said to be superior to any other kind of dried fish.

The corvino (_Sparus Chilensis_) is nearly of the same size as the robalo; it is sometimes, however, found of five or six feet in length. This fish has a small head, and a large oval body, covered with broad, rhomboidal scales, of a mother-of-pearl colour, marked with white. The tail is forked, and the body encircled obliquely, from the shoulders to the belly, with a number of brownish lines. The fins are armed with spiny rays, and the flesh is white, firm, and of a good taste, particularly when fried. It would probably be better still if it were prepared like that of the tunny.

The lisa (_Mugil Chilensis_) in its form, scales, and back is much like the common mullet, but is distinguished by the dorsal fin, which in the lisa is entire. There are two species of this fish, the sea and the river lisa, neither of which exceeds a foot in length; the first is a very good fish, but the latter is so exquisite, that it is preferred by many to the best of trout.

Another esteemed fresh-water fish of Chile is the bagre, or luvur (_Silenus Chilensis_, probably the _A. geneionis inermis_), which has a smooth skin, without scales, and is brown upon the sides, and whitish under the belly. In appearance, it is not very prepossessing, for in form it resembles a tadpole; the head being of a size disproportionate to the length of the body, which does not exceed eleven inches at the most. It has a blunt mouth, furnished like that of the barbel with barbs. It has a sharp spine on the back fins, like the tropical bagre, but its puncture is not venomous, as that is said to be. The flesh is yellow, and the most delicious of any esculent fish that is known. There is said to be another species of this fish inhabiting the sea, which is black--the same, probably, that Anson’s sailors called, from its colour, the chimney-sweep.

While on the subject of fish common to this locality, I may mention that the Abbé Molina states, that ‘the river Talten, which waters the Araucanian provinces, produces a small fish called _paye_, which, as I have been assured by those who have seen them, is so diaphanous, that if several are placed upon each other, any object beneath them may be distinctly seen. If this property is not greatly exaggerated, this fish might serve to discover the secret process of digestion and the motion of the fluids.’

Mr. Ruschenberger thus describes a Hawaiian restaurant:--‘The earth floor of a straw hovel was covered by mats. Groups of men squatted in a circle, with gourd plates before them, supplied with raw fish and salt-water, and by their side was an enormous gourd, of the dimensions of a wash tub, filled with poë, a sort of paste made of taro. They ate of the raw fish, occasionally sopping the torn animal in the salt water as a sauce, then sucking it, with that peculiar smack which indicates the reception of a delicious morsel.’

The noble salmon, which honest Izaak Walton justly calls, ‘the king of fresh-water fish,’ is too well known as a choice article of food to need description. A jowl of fresh salmon was one of the requisites, in 1444, at the feast of the Goldsmiths’ Company; and in 1473, three quarters of Colnbrook salmon are charged 6_s._ 4_d._; and at a fish dinner of the same company in 1498, among large quantities of fish mentioned, are a fresh salmon 11_s._; a great salmon £1; and two salmon-trout 2_s._ 8_d._ In 1518, for ij. fresh samon xvijˢ jᵈ Item, a fresh samon xiijˢ iiijᵈ; and in the eighth year of King Henry VIII. iiij. fresh samons are charged xlˢ

In the great rush after gold, the fisheries of the Pacific coast, which have been famous for years past for their extent and value, have not received that attention which they merit. Now that the living tide has again set in strongly towards the North-West, the demand for food to feed the thousands will cause the fishery to be more largely developed. The whole coast is particularly rich in the more valuable species of the finny tribe.

A San Francisco paper states:--‘The salmon of California and Oregon, with which our markets are supplied in the fresh and cured state, are nowhere surpassed in quality or flavour. Our rivers, bays, and estuaries are alive with these valuable fish, and the fishermen are busy in securing them during the present run. It is estimated that there are 400 boats on the Sacramento river alone, engaged in fisheries. The boats are valued at 60,000 dollars, the nets at 80,000 dollars, and seines at 6,000 dollars. The fishing season lasts from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, during which time the estimated average of each boat per day is 30 dollars, or an aggregate of 12,000 dollars. The hauling seines yield 100 dollars each per day, or 2,000 dollars in the aggregate. The fish thus caught supply the markets of San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, and the mining towns in the interior. Sometimes 2,000 lbs. are sent to one order. The amount shipped daily to San Francisco at present is from 5,000 to 6,000 lbs., which will be increased as the season advances.

‘The fishing smacks outside the harbour in the vicinity of Drake’s Bay, Punto de los Reyes, Tomales, and similar points, as well as other portions of the coast, are busily engaged in the trade.

‘This business is becoming every year of greater interest, and the attention of our legislature has recently been drawn to its proper regulation and protection. A description of the fishes common to these waters, with an account of their habits, quality, and relative value, would be of great interest.

‘In addition to salmon there are other varieties of fish deserving more than a passing notice. Much difficulty is experienced in classifying them under the proper heads, and recognizing the species under their various arbitrary names. The sturgeon, the rock cod, the mackerel--which, although it bears some resemblance to the Atlantic fish is inferior to it in flavour and fatness--the herring, the smelt, the sardine, and other varieties found in our markets, are all more or less valuable. Myriads of sardines abound along the whole southern coast. The Bay of Monterey has especially become famous for its abundance of this small but valuable fish. It is a matter of surprise that the taking and preparation of this fish, which enters so largely into the commerce of the world, has never been attended to as a source of revenue and profit in this region. The experiment certainly is worth testing. There are doubtless many persons here, familiar with the trade as practised on the coast of France, whose services might be secured in the business.’

Another Californian paper, the _Sacramento Union_, remarks:--‘The fishing interest in the Sacramento at this point is increasing and expanding with astonishing rapidity, from year to year, and from month to month. The water of the river must be alive with salmon, or such numbers caught daily would sensibly reduce their numbers. But experienced fishermen inform us, while the run lasts, so countless is the number, that no matter how many are employed in the business, or how many are taken daily, no diminution can be perceived. Even the ‘tules’ between this and the Coast Range are reported to be filled with salmon. The run this year is said to be greater than ever before known at this season. The extraordinary run of the present time is only expected to continue for something like three weeks. They seem to run in immense schools, with some weeks intervening between the appearance of each school, during which the numbers taken are light, as compared with the quantity taken during a time like the present. No account is kept of the number engaged in fishing, or of the amount caught, and all statements relative thereto are made from estimates obtained from those who have experience in the business, and probably approximate correctness. These estimates give the number of men employed now in taking fish in the Sacramento at about 6OO--the number of fish taken daily, on an average, at 2,000--their average weight 17 lbs., making 34,000 lbs. per day. Two cents per lb., which is probably more than the present average price by the quantity, would give a daily income to those employed of 680 dollars, not very high pay. Either the number of men engaged in the business, we imagine, must be over estimated, or the number of fish caught under estimated. It requires two men to man a boat, which would give 300 boats for 600 men: 2,000 fish a day would give to each man a fraction over three as his share. We presume few are fishing who do not catch a good many more than that number. We saw a boat-load, the product of the previous night, consisting of 66 salmon, weighed yesterday morning. They averaged a fraction over 17 lbs., and gave 33 as the number caught by each man, instead of three, as estimated above. Say the 600 fishermen man, on an average, 200 boats a night; the average number caught by each boat put at 20, and the sum total would be 4,000 fish, instead of 2,000, as estimated. Our impression is that the latter comes nearer the mark than the former, as a good many of the fishermen send their fish directly to San Francisco; others take them to different points for salting. Large numbers are salted down daily, several firms and individuals being extensively engaged in this branch of the trade. The fish are put down in hogsheads, which average, when filled, about 800 lbs. From 1,000 to 3,000 lbs. are put down daily by those engaged in salting. An acquaintance has filled 65 hogsheads this season. The most of those engaged in salting live on the Washington side of the river, and salt their fish there. Including those engaged in salting, catching, and selling, probably the fish business furnishes employment for 1,000 men.’

The salmon is found in no other waters in such vast multitudes as are met in the rivers emptying into the Pacific. On the Atlantic side, the leading fish feature is the run of shad in the spring; on the Pacific side, salmon ascend the rivers at all seasons, in numbers beyond all computation. In California and Oregon, the rivers are alive with them; the great number taken by fishermen are but a drop from the bucket. Above this, on the coast side, tribes of Indians use no other food. As a table luxury, they are esteemed by most persons the finest fish caught. Unlike many fish, they contain but few bones, and the orange-coloured meat can be served in slices to suit customers. It is emphatically the meat for the million; it costs so little--not a quarter that of other meats--that rich and poor can feast upon salmon as often in the day as they choose to indulge in the luxury. In the course of a few years, salmon fishing will extend itself to all the prominent rivers in the North Pacific States. Catching and curing salmon will then have become a systematized business; the fish consumption will then have extended itself generally over those States, and more than likely become, in the meantime, an important article of export.

While upon the subject of these fisheries, it may be added, that a considerable portion of the Chinese population, both at San Francisco and at Sacramento, have engaged extensively in this business. In the vicinity of Mission Creek, near the former city, they have gone into the business upon a large scale. The average ‘catch,’ each day, is estimated at about 5,000 lbs., for which a ready market is found among the Chinese population, at five dollars per cwt. The process of catching, cleaning, and curing, presents a busy and curious scene.

Sir John Bowring remarks that, ‘The multitudes of persons who live by the fisheries in China afford evidence not only that the land is cultivated to the greatest possible extent, but that it is insufficient to supply the necessities of the overflowing population; for agriculture is held in high honour in China, and the husbandman stands next in rank to the sage, or literary man, in the social hierarchy. It has been supposed that nearly a tenth of the population derive their means of support from fisheries. Hundreds and thousands of boats crowd the whole coasts of China--sometimes acting in communities, sometimes independent and isolated. There is no species of craft by which a fish can be inveigled which is not practised with success in China. Every variety of net, from vast seines, embracing miles, to the smallest hand-filet in the care of a child. Fishing by night and fishing by day--fishing in moonlight, by torchlight, and in utter darkness--fishing in boats of all sizes--fishing by those who are stationary on the rock by the seaside, and by those who are absent for weeks on the wildest of seas--fishing by cormorants--fishing by divers--fishing with lines, with baskets--by every imaginable decoy and device. There is no river which is not staked to assist the fisherman in his craft. There is no lake, no pond, which is not crowded with fish. A piece of water is nearly as valuable as a field of fertile land. At daybreak every city is crowded with sellers of live fish, who carry their commodity in buckets of water, saving all they do not sell to be returned to the pond or kept for another day’s service.

The fishing grounds of Van Diemen’s Land are periodically visited by a splendid fish named arbouka, a well-known piscatory visitant on the coast of New Zealand. Great numbers of these beautiful denizens of the deep have been caught, varying in weight from 60 lbs. to 100 lbs. each. The trumpeter is one of the most magnificent of Tasmanian fish; and is unrivalled in the quality of its flesh by any visitant in those waters. A demand has been created for them in Victoria; and before long, a stirring trade will be established between the two colonies in these beautiful fish.

The native cooking-oven of New Zealand, called the unu, is a very curious contrivance, and is thus described by Mr. S. C. Brees. It consists of a round hole, about two or three feet in diameter, and twelve inches deep, in which some wood is placed and lighted. Large pebble-stones are then thrown on the fire and heated, which remain at the bottom of the hole after the wood is consumed; the stones are next arranged, so as to present a level surface, and sprinkled with water; wild cabbage or other leaves are moistened and spread over them, upon which the food intended to be cooked is laid; the whole is then covered over with leaves and flax-baskets, and lastly, filled over with earth, which completes the operation. After allowing it to remain a certain time, according to circumstances, which the cook determines with the utmost precision, the oven is opened and the food removed. Eels and potatoes are delicious when cooked in this manner, and every other kind of provision.

The seer-fish (_Cybium guttatum_) is generally considered the finest flavoured of the finny race that swims in the Indian seas; it has a good deal the flavour of salmon.

There are several esteemed fish obtained round Ceylon. The Pomfret bull’s eye (_Holocentrus ruber_) is found at certain seasons in abundance on the southern coast of Ceylon, in deep water. It is greatly esteemed by the natives as an article of food, and reaches a considerable size, frequently nearly two feet in length. The flesh is white and solid. For splendour and beauty, this fish is almost unsurpassed.

A fish called by the natives great-fire (_Scorpæna volitans_) is eaten by the native fishermen, the flesh being white, solid, and nutritive. Linnæus describes the flesh as delicious.

The pookoorowah (_Holocentrus argenteus_) is a very delicious fish, seldom exceeding twelve or thirteen inches in length. The gal-handah (_Chætodon araneus_), a singular and much admired fish, only about three inches in length, has a delicate and white flesh, and is greatly esteemed.

In Java and Sumatra, a preparation of small fish, with red-rice, having the appearance of anchovies, and the colour of red-cabbage, is esteemed a delicacy. So in India, the preparation called tamarind fish is much prized as a breakfast relish, where the acid of the tamarind is made use of for preserving the white pomfret-fish, cut in transverse slices. The mango-fish (_Polynemus longifilis_, Cuvier; _P. paradiscus_ of Linnæus), about eight or nine inches long by two deep, is much esteemed in India. At Calcutta the _Lates nobilis_, different species of _Polynemus_, and the _Mugil Corsula_, daily cover the tables of Europeans, who will more readily recognize these fishes under the names of the _Begti_ or _Cockup_, _Sudjeh_, _Tupsi_, and the Indian Mullet.

At the Sandheads may be found some of those delicious fishes, which are more familiar to the residents of Madras and Bombay, for instance, the Indian soles, the roll-fish, and above all, the black and white pomfrets, and the bummolah, which latter in a dried state is known by the name of the Bombay duck. The bummolah is a small glutinous transparent fish, about the size of smelt.

There are many excellent fish obtained from the sea round the Cape Colony, and about 2,500 tons are shipped annually to the Mauritius, forming nearly three fourths of the island consumption; the principal consumers being the coolie labourers or Indian population.

Geelbeck, or yellow mouth, sometimes called Cape salmon (_Otolithus æquidens_, Cuv. and Val.), is the finest as to quality; they are taken abundantly with the hook and line, or net, and weigh about 14 lbs. The cost of preparation ready for shipment is about £12. It forms an article of food for the poor and lazy. The Malays at the Cape cure a great deal in vinegar (for home consumption), the same as pickled salmon in England; and it is not a bad representative of it. For exportation they are opened down the back, the intestines taken out, head cut off, salted for a night, and dried in the sun.

Snook (_Thyrsites atua_), similar to the baraconta, is a long, slim, oily fish, taken with any shining bait; it is a perfect salt-water pike, very strong and ferocious, and is dispatched, after being pulled on board, by blows on the head with a kind of knob-kerrie. These are cured the same way as the geelbeck; the cost of production is about £16 per ton. They are highly prized by the colonists, and esteemed before any fish imported into Mauritius, fetching about £2 per ton more than cod. These fish are very fine eating when cured fresh. They are also much esteemed in Ceylon. The Malays cure them without salt by drying in the sun, with a little pepper and spice; they are then delicious.

Silver fish (_Dentex argyrozona_) are similar to the bream of England; each weighs from 6 to 8 lbs. They are got up for shipment the same as the others; the cost of production is about £10 per ton. They are the least esteemed of any at the Mauritius market, but when fresh they are very nice eating. The bastard silver fish (_D. rupestris_) is considered one of the very finest fishes in the colony. It is esteemed for foreign markets. Harders are a mullet, about eight inches long, which are principally cured in small casks in brine, for up-country use. The Cape farmers are very fond of them, but few are exported. They have also mackerel very large, very fat, which are better cured than fresh.

The Jacob Evertsen (_Sebastes capensis_), so called after a Dutch captain, remarkable for a red face and large projecting eyes, is a fish which, though common in Table Bay almost at all seasons, is highly prized for its flesh by most colonists. Another species, the sancord (_S. maculatus_), which is not so common, is a very delicious fish. The kabeljauw (_Sciæna hololepidota_) is a large fish from two to three feet long, common on the coast, being caught with the hook and the drag-net. It is one of the staple fishes in the Cape Town market; dried and salted like cod it is exported to the Mauritius and elsewhere. Its flesh when young is good, but firm and dry in adult individuals. The baardmannetje (_Umbrina capensis_, Pappe), another newly described fish of the same family, which is chiefly caught in False Bay during summer, measures from 2 to 2½ feet, and is reputed for its delicious flesh.

The hangberger (_Sargus Hottentotus_), a fish about 18 inches long, which is common in Table Bay from June to August, is much in request, particularly at the time when it is with roe. It is also cured and pickled for economical purposes. It feeds on shell fish, and is caught with the hook.

The Hottentot fish (_Sargus capensis_), from 12 to 14 inches long, which is mostly confined to Table Bay and the West Coast, may be caught at all seasons with the hook. It is not only a superior table fish, but forms when salted and dried an article of export.

The roode steen brassem of the Dutch (_Chrysophrys laticeps_, Cuvier) is a bulky fish, often exceeding 3½ feet in length and 14 inches in breadth. It is very voracious, and feeds generally on crabs and cuttle fish (_Sepia_ and _Loligo_). As food it is much prized, and is also cured for exportation.

The Roman fish (_Chrysophrys cristiceps_) is one of the prettiest and most delicious fish met with in the Cape markets. It is generally acknowledged to be a superior dish.

The daggerath (_Pagrus laniarius_) is of a dark rose colour, about 12 inches long. It is highly prized in the colony for its delicious flesh. This handsome fish owes its surname, _laniarius_ (butcher), both to its colour and to its sharp teeth and voracity.

The windtoy (_Cantharus Blochii_) is a delicious table fish, more commonly caught in winter, and often put up in bundles along with the Hottentot fish (_Sargus capensis_). The flesh of the dasje fish, another species (_Cantharus emarginatus_), is also highly esteemed as food.

There is a fish called by the colonists the bamboo fish (_Boops salpa_), from feeding on algæ and being caught principally in localities where there is an abundance of sea-weed. On account of its vegetable nourishment, it exhibits at times a particular smell when embowelled, and is for that reason called stink-fish by some of the fishermen. It is a rich and delicate fish, and though scarce in the Cape Town market, is common in Saldanha Bay, where it is dried and salted for home consumption.

The flesh of the bastard Jacob Evertsen (_Pimelepterus fuscus_) is well flavoured and very nice. This fish is of a uniform dusky brown colour. It feeds on shell-fish.

The galleon fish (_Dipterodon capensis_) is more plentiful in the western division of the Cape Colony; it is highly esteemed as food and always fetches a good price. It is, however, disliked by some on account of the many black veins traversing its flesh, and is at times rather unwholesome, from being too rich and requiring good digestive organs.

The elft-fish (_Temnodon saltator_) is uniformly lead coloured, shaded with dark green on its back. From leaping now and then out of the water it has obtained its name of _saltator_ (jumper). It is held in great esteem as a table fish, and the younger individuals are truly deemed a dainty.

There are several species of mullet recorded as inhabitants of the bays and rivers of the Cape Colony. All of them are caught with the net. They make good table fish, but are more frequently salted or smoke-dried (under the name of bokkoms) like the herring, and thus preserved, form a very considerable article of home consumption as well as of export.

The klip-fish (_Blennius versicolor_, Pappe) is greatly reputed for its flesh, which is nice, well flavoured, and wholesome.

The flesh of the bagger (_Bagrus capensis_) is extremely delicate, and bears a greater resemblance to that of the eel than that of any other sea fish in the colony. Owing to its ugliness, this curious fish, which hides itself among stones in muddy water the better to entrap its unsuspecting prey, is from popular prejudice less prized than it deserves.

English writers on Ichthyology comment very unfavourably on the merits of the hake (_Gadus merluccius_) and call it ‘a coarse fish, scarcely fit for the dinner table.’ At the Cape its qualities are generally and fully appreciated; in fact, its flesh is highly delicate and little inferior to that of the haddock (_Gadus æglefinus_). At times it makes its appearance in large shoals. It is then abundantly caught, salted, and dried, for exportation. The cured or dried Cape stock-fish is an excellent dish, far superior to that insipid stuff introduced from Holland or other countries.

The rock-cod (_Serranus Cuvierii_) is highly esteemed as an article of food.

Sardines in myriads swarm round Table Bay, at one season of the year; klip-fish, king klip-fish, and soles (rather scarce), are considered a luxury.

It is hardly requisite to say much of that cosmopolitan fish, the sole, which is for its delicacy prized as well at the Cape as elsewhere.

Thousands of cray-fish are caught daily; four of the largest can be obtained for a penny; but it is not fashionable to eat them, although they are very good.

The quantity of fish throughout the whole extent of the coast, bordering on the Agulha’s bank, is immense, and would be the richest fishery in the world. Exports of sardines in the French style, of potted cray-fish in the American, and the choicest fish preserved fresh in tins, might be made profitable.

I may add here that Dr. L. Pappe, of Cape Town, to whom I am indebted for my information on the Cape fishes, has published in the Colony an interesting synopsis of the edible fishes at the Cape of Good Hope, in which he furnishes much new and interesting descriptive scientific detail.

INSECTS.

Insects furnish more food delicacies than is generally supposed. In the popular _Introduction to Entomology_, by Kirby and Spence, it is well remarked, that,

‘If we could lay aside our English prejudices, there is no reason why some of the insects might not be eaten, for those used by various nations as food, generally speaking, live on vegetable substances, and are consequently much more select and cleanly in their diet than the pig or the duck, which form a favourite part of our food. They who would turn with disgust from a locust, or the grub of a beetle, feel no symptoms of nausea when a lobster, crab, or shrimp is set before them. The fact is, that habit has reconciled us to the eating of these last, which, viewed in themselves, with their threatening claws, and many feet, are really more disgusting than the former. Had the habit been reversed, we should have viewed the former with appetite, and the latter with abhorrence--as do the Arabs, who are as much astounded at our eating crabs, lobsters, and oysters, as we are at their eating locusts.’

Herrick, an old author, 200 years ago, in describing a feast given by Oberon to the fairy elves, alludes to the insects as amongst their choicest cates.

‘Gladding his palate with some store
Of emmet’s eggs: what would he more?
But beards of mice, a newt’s stewed thigh,
A bloated earwig, and a fly.
With the red-capp’d worm that’s shut
Within the concave of a nut,
Brown as his tooth;--a little moth,
Late fatten’d in a piece of cloth.’

Herrick’s _Hesperides_, 1658.

COLEOPTERA.

Many larvæ of insects, and especially of beetles, are eaten in different parts of the world.

The grub of the palm weevil (_Cordylia palmarum_), which is the size of the thumb, has long been in request in the East and West Indies. The natives of Surinam roast and eat them as something exquisite. In Jamaica, where it is known as the grou-grou worm, I have seen it eaten commonly. A grub named _Macauco_ is also there in request at the principal tables. It is eaten both by whites and blacks, who empty, wash, and roast them, and find them delicious. A similar insect is dressed at Mauritius, and eaten by all classes.

An old writer--Brookes, _On the Properties and Uses of Insects_, 1772, says--‘They are eaten by the French, in the West Indies, after they have been roasted before the fire, when a small wooden spit has been thrust through them. When they begin to be hot, they powder them with a crust of rasped bread, mixed with salt, and a little pepper and nutmeg. This powder keeps in the fat, or at least, sucks it up; and when they are done enough, they are served up with orange juice. They are highly esteemed by the French, as excellent eating.’

The larva, or grub, of one of the species of beetles which infest cocoa-nut trees, is called _Tucuma_, or _Grugou_, in British Guiana. It is about two or three inches long, and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and the head is black. They are reckoned a great delicacy by wood-cutters and epicures of the country, and they are generally dressed by frying them in a pan. By some they are preferred in a raw state, and after seizing them by the black head, they are dipped in lime-juice, and forthwith swallowed.

The late Mr. J. C. Bidwell, a botanist, travelling in Australia, states--‘I never before tasted one of the large grubs, which are a favourite food of the blacks. They are about four inches long, and about as thick as a finger. They inhabit the wood of the gum-trees. I had often tried to taste one, but could not manage it. Now, however, hunger overcame my nausea. It was very good, but not as I had expected to find it--rich; it was only sweet and milky.’

Sir Robert Schomburgk writes:--‘The decaying woods of the West India islands, the Central and some of the southern portions of America, afford a delicacy to the Indian, which many colonists do not even refuse, in the larvæ of a large beetle, which is found in considerable numbers in the pith, when the trunk is near its decay. The larva, or grub, is frequently of the size of the little finger; and, after being boiled or roasted, resembles in its taste beef marrow. The Indians of Guiana frequently cut down the Mauritia palm, for the purpose of attracting the beetle to deposit its eggs in it, and when they collect a large quantity, they are roasted over a slow fire, to extract the fat, which is preserved in calabashes.

The Roman epicures fattened some of these larvæ, or grubs, on flour. Some naturalists think that the grubs of most of the beetles might be safely eaten; and that those of the cockchafer, which feeds upon the roots of grass, or the perfect insects themselves, which, if we may judge from the eagerness with which cats, and turkeys and other birds devour them, are no despicable morsel, might be added to our food delicacies. This would certainly be one means of keeping down the numbers of these occasionally destructive animals.

The Goliath beetles are said to be roasted and eaten by the natives of South America and Western Africa, and they often make a _bonne bouche_ of splendid insects which would gratify many an entomologist. Although the large prices of £30, £40, or £50, which used to be asked for them, are now very much reduced, fine specimens of some of the species even now fetch five to six pounds for cabinet specimens.

The Australian aborigines are gourmands in their way, and able to appreciate the good things which surround them. Mr. Clement Hodgkinson in a work on Australia says: