Chapter VIII: Part 8

The green or edible frog (_Rana esculenta_) is a native of Europe, some parts of Asia, and also of Northern Africa. It is in high request on the Continent for its flesh, the meat of the hind quarters, which is alone used, being delicate and well tasted. In Vienna, where the consumption of these frogs is very considerable, they are preserved alive, and fattened in froggeries (grenouillières) constructed for the express purpose.

In America, the flesh of the huge bull-frog (_R. pipiens_, Harl.; _R. mugiens_, Catesby,) is tender, white, and affords excellent eating. Some bull-frogs weigh as much as half-a-pound, but the hind legs are the only parts used as food. They make excellent bait for the larger cat-fish.

In the Antilles, another huge bull-frog is reared in a state of domestication for the table. It is the _Rana ocellata_, Linn; _R. gigas_ of Spix; _Cystignathus ocellatus_, Wagler.

Toads seem also to be eaten by the French, though unwittingly. Professor Dumeril used to relate, in his lectures at the Jardin des Plantes, that the frogs brought to the markets in Paris are caught in the stagnant waters round Montmorenci, in the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, &c. The people employed in this traffic separate the hind quarters and legs of the frogs from the body, denude them of their skin, arrange them on skewers, as larks are done in this country, and then bring them in that state to market. In seeking for frogs, these dealers often meet with toads, which they do not reject, but prepare them in the same way as they would frogs; and, as it is impossible to determine whether the hind quarters of these creatures, after the skin is stripped off, belong to frogs or toads, it continually happen that great numbers of the supposed frogs sold in Paris for food are actually toads.[18]

This account of the mode of bringing the frogs to market, in Paris, does not tally with that given by my friend, Mr. F. T. Buckland, in his _Curiosities of Natural History_; he says:--

‘In France, frogs are considered a luxury, as any _bon vivant_ ordering a dish of them at the _Trois Frères_, at Paris, may, by the long price, speedily ascertain. Not wishing to try such an expensive experiment in gastronomy, I went to the large market in the Faubourg St. Germain, and enquired for frogs. I was referred to a stately-looking dame at a fish-stall, who produced a box nearly full of them, huddling and crawling about, and occasionally croaking as though aware of the fate to which they were destined. The price fixed was two a penny, and having ordered a dish to be prepared, the _Dame de la Halle_ dived her hand in among them, and having secured her victim by the hind legs, she severed him in twain with a sharp knife; the legs, minus skin, still struggling, were placed on a dish; and the head, with the fore-legs affixed, retained life and motion, and performed such motions that the operation became painful to look at. These legs were afterwards cooked at the _restaurateur’s_, being served up fried in bread crumbs, as larks are in England; and most excellent eating they were, tasting more like the delicate flesh of the rabbit than anything else I can think of. I afterwards tried a dish of the common English frog, but his flesh is not so white nor so tender as that of his French brother.’

The Chinese seem also to appreciate frogs, for Mr. Fortune, in describing a Chinese market, says--

‘Frogs seemed much in demand. They are brought to market in tubs and baskets, and the vender employs himself in skinning them as he sits making sales. He is extremely expert at this part of his business. He takes up the frog in his left hand, and with a knife, which he holds in his right, chops off the fore part of its head. The skin is then drawn back over the body and down to the feet, which are chopped off and thrown away. The poor frog, still alive, but headless, skinless, and feetless, is then thrown into another tub, and the operation is repeated on the rest in the same way. Every now and then the artist lays down his knife, and takes up his scales to weigh these animals for his customers, and make his sales. Everything in this civilised country, whether it be gold or silver, geese or frogs, is sold by weight.’

According to Seba and Madame Merian, the negroes eat the flesh of the Surinam toad (_Pipa Surinamensis_).

Frogs or toads of an enormous size (_Crapaux_) are very numerous in Dominica, and much esteemed as an article of food; the flesh, when fricasseed, being preferred by the English, as well as French, to chickens; and, when made into soup, recommended for the sick, especially in consumptive cases.

Wallace, in his _Travels on the Amazon_, tells us, ‘his Indians went several times early in the morning to the gapo to catch frogs, which they obtained in great numbers, stringing them on a sipo, and boiling them entire, entrails and all, and devoured them with much gusto. The frogs are mottled of various colours, have dilated toes, and are called jui.’

The eating of frogs seems to be indulged in in the Philippines, for a traveller tells us that--

‘After the rains there may generally be procured, by those who like them, frogs, which are taken from the ditch round the walls in great numbers, and are then fat and in good condition for eating, making a very favourite curry of some of the Europeans, their flesh being very tender.’[19]

FISH.

More than two-thirds of our globe being covered by the waters of the ocean, and of the remaining third a great part being washed by extensive rivers, or occupied by lakes, ponds, or marshes, these watery realms, teeming with life, furnish man with a great variety of food. Some of these have already passed under consideration in the reptilia, and others in the great class mammalia, as seals, morses, and manatees, which can remain at no great distance from the sea, together with whales, which never leave it, though constantly obliged, by the nature of their respiration, to seek its surface.

Mollusca, crustacea, annelides, and zoophytes are almost peculiar to this element, having but few scattered representatives on earth; but, amidst all its varied inhabitants, there are none more exclusively confined to its realms, none that rule them with such absolute sway, none more remarkable for number, variety of form, beauty of colour, and, above all, for the infinite advantages which they yield to man, than the great class of fishes. In fact, their evident superiority has caused their name to pass as a general appellation to all the inhabitants of the deep. Whales are called fish, crabs are called shell-fish, and the same term is used to denote oysters; though the first are mammalia, the second articulata, and the third mollusca.

Milton has well described the abundance of fish--

----‘Each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarm and shoals
Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales,
Glide under the green waves; * * *
* * * part single, or with mate
Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray; or sporting, with quick glance,
Show to the sun their way’d coats dropp’d with gold.’

The modes of preserving fish are various; they are salted and dried, smoked and potted, baked or marinated, preserved in oil, and pounded in a dry mass.

Several savage nations possess the art of preparing fish in a great variety of ways, even as a kind of flour, bread, &c.

Dr. Davy, commenting upon the remarkable facts respecting the exemption of fish-eating persons from certain diseases, suggests that there is undoubtedly something in the composition of fish which is not common to other articles of food, whether vegetable or animal. He believes this consists of iodine. He says, that in all instances in which he sought for this substance in _sea fish_ he has found it; and also traces of it in migratory fish, but not in _fresh-water fish_.

The trials he made were limited to red gurnard, mackerel, haddock, common cod, whiting, sole, ling, herring, pilchard, salmon, sea-trout, smelt, and trout.

The experiment was as follows.--He dried and charred, lixiviated, reduced to ashes, and again washed from a quarter of a pound to a pound of fish.

A good deal of limy matter was afforded from the washings of the charcoal of the sea fish.

The saline matter was principally common salt, had a pretty strong alkaline reaction, and by the blue hue produced by starch and _aqua regia_, afforded a clear proof of the presence of iodine. Only a slight trace was detected in the fresh-water salmon, sea-trout, and smelt. In the spent salmon descending to the sea, only just a perceptible trace was observable, and no trace in either parr or trout.

Dr. Davy states further, that he has detected it in an unmistakable manner in the common shrimp; also in the cockle, mussel, oyster, crab, &c.; nor is this remarkable, considering that it enters into the greater part of the food of fishes.

He observes, also, that cod liver oil is well established as an alterative or cure of pulmonary consumption, and as this oil contains iodine, the inference is, that sea fish, generally, may be alike beneficial. The practical application of this inquiry is obvious. A suggestion is also made as to the efficacy of drying fish, even without salt, the drying being complete to the exclusion of even hydroscopic water, for the use of the explorer and traveller.

The inference as to the salutary effects of fish depending on the presence of iodine, in the prevention of tubercular disease, might be extended to _goitre_, which it is known has already yielded to iodine. This formidable complaint appears to be completely unknown to the inhabitants of sea-ports and sea-coasts. Respecting another and concluding question, viz., the different parts of fish, it is to be remarked that, so far as experiments have gone, the effects will not be the same from all parts of the fish, because the inorganic elements are not the same. The examples chosen are the liver, muscle, roe, or melt. In the ash of the liver and muscle of sea-fish, Dr. Davy always found a large proportion of saline matter, common salt, abounding, with a minute portion of iodine, rather more in the liver than the muscle, and free alkali, or alkali in a state to occasion an alkaline reaction, as denoted by test-paper; whilst in the roe or melt there has been detected very little saline matter, no trace of iodine, nor of free alkali; on the contrary, a free acid, viz., phosphorus, analogous to what occurs in the yolk of an egg, and in consequence of which it is very difficult to digest either the roe or melt of a fish, or the yolk of an egg. The same conclusion on the same ground is applicable to fresh-water fish, viz., the absence of iodine.

A very common North American dish is chowder, which is thus prepared:--

Fry brown several slices of pork; cut each fish into five or six pieces; flour, and place a layer of them in your pork fat; sprinkle on a little pepper and salt; add cloves, mace, and sliced onions; if liked, lay on bits of the fried pork, and crackers soaked in cold water. Repeat this till you put in all the fish; turn on water just sufficient to cover them, and put on a heated bake pan lid. After stewing about 20 minutes, take up the fish, and mix two teaspoonfuls of flour with a little water, and stir it into the gravy, adding a little pepper and butter. A tumbler of wine, catsup, and spices will improve it. Cod and bass make the best chowder. In making clam chowder, the hard part of the clam should be cut off and rejected.

Fish glue consists almost wholly of gelatine; 100 grains of good dry isinglass, containing rather more than 98 of matter soluble in water.

Isinglass may be obtained from many fish. Jackson states, that the sounds of cod afford it; and that the lakes of America abound with fish, from which the very finest isinglass may be obtained. This substance is best prepared in summer, as frost impairs the colour, and deprives it of weight and of gelatinous principle.

It is made into jellies and blanc-manger, by the cook and confectioner, and with some sort of balsam, spread on silk, forms the court-plaister of the shops.

Fish maws are the dried stomachs of fishes, like our cod’s sounds, which being considered a great luxury by the Chinese, and as possessing strengthening and aphrodisiac properties, are brought over in the junks from the Indian islands.

Crawford states, that they often fetch upwards of £14 per cwt. in the Canton market. The exports of fish maws from Bombay average from 1500 to 2500 cwts. per annum; from Madras, about 50 cwts.; and from Bengal about 4,000 lbs.

Caviar is the common name for a preparation of the dried spawn, or salted roe of fish. The black caviar is made from the roe of sturgeon, and a single large fish will sometimes yield as much as 120 lbs. of roe. A cheaper and less prized red kind is obtained from the roe of the gray mullet, and some of the carp species, which are common in the rivers, and on the shores of the Black Sea. Caviar is principally consumed in Russia, Germany, and Italy, by the Greeks, during their long fasts, and also in small quantities in England. Inferior caviar is made into small, dry cakes. One thousand cwt. of caviar has been shipped from Odessa in a single season, and from Astracan, about 30,000 barrels. The produce of caviar from the Caspian sea, some years ago, was as much as a million and a half of pounds.

A preparation called botargo is made on the coasts of the Mediterranean from the spawn of a kind of fine mullet of a red color. The best is said to be made at Tunis, but it is also common in Sicily.

The dried roe of an enormous species of shad, which frequents the great river of Siak in Sumatra, constitutes an article of commerce in the East. According to Dr. Richardson, very good bread may be made from the roe of the pollack, an ocean fish (_Gadus pollachius_), found on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the Indian seas: on the British coasts it is often termed the cod-fish; and when young, the whiting pollack. In North America, this fish is so plentiful that it is salted and sold by the quintal like cod or ling.

The Chinook Indians of the Columbia rivers are very fond of herrings’ roes, which they collect in the following manner:--They sink cedar branches to the bottom of the river, in shallow places, by placing upon them a few heavy stones, taking care not to cover the green foliage, as the fish prefer spawning on anything green, and they literally cover all the branches by next morning with spawn. The Indians wash this off in their water-proof baskets, to the bottom of which it sinks; this is squeezed by the hand into little balls and then dried, and is very palatable.

The large roe of the Callipeva fish, already alluded to, is considered a delicacy in the West Indies. The mode of curing it differs widely from that in which the roe of the sturgeon and the sterlet is prepared.

The following is the account given by Goldsmith, in his _History of the Earth and Animated Nature_, of the way in which the latter is manufactured:--

‘They take the spawn, and freeing it from the small membranes that connect it together, they wash it with vinegar, and afterwards spread it to dry upon a table; they then put it into a vessel with salt, breaking the spawn with their hands, and not with a pestle. This done, they put it into a canvas bag, letting the liquor drain from it. Lastly, they put it into a tub with holes at the bottom, so that if there be any moisture still remaining, it may run out; then it is pressed down and covered up for use.’

Very different is the manner adopted by the Spaniards in Central America in curing the roe of the callipeva. They do it in this wise:--First, they rub the roe well with salt and a little nitre, then they put a number of them one upon another, and compress them by means of a heavy weight. After this, they make an altar of green boughs, covering the top also with green branches traversing each other. The inside being filled with straw and fresh leaves, which are ignited, they place the roes on the top and cover them well up likewise with green boughs. They are allowed to remain there six or seven days, during which time the fire keeps smouldering and sending up a thick smoke which is concentrated upon the roes by the upper layer of branches. This they call barbecuing. The membraneous covering of the roe is not taken off, consequently it will keep for a long time, the air being entirely excluded from it. When the roe is eaten, it should be cut in very thin slices. The outer coating should not be taken off, but rubbed clean with a dry napkin.

In New Caledonia, the natives are said to eat the roe of the _Salmo scouleri_ mixed with rancid oil, which, in their estimation, gives the savoury morsel additional flavour. The smell alone is said by a traveller to be so nauseous as to prevent any but a native from partaking of it, unless severely pressed with hunger.

Dr. Richardson tells us that, when well bruised and mixed with a little flour, the roe of the methy (_Lotha maculosa_) can be baked into very good biscuits, which are used in the fur countries as tea-bread.

Among the Anglo-Saxons and in the middle ages, fish of almost every kind were eaten, including many now thought unwholesome. Whales, when accidentally taken on our coasts, appear in those early times to have been also salted for food; an allowance is entered, amongst the other expenses of John de Lee, Sheriff of Essex and Herts, for guarding a whale taken off Mersey Island; for emptying of casks to put it in; for salt to salt it; and for carrying it to the court of Stamford.

Brand states porpoises to have been sold for food in the Newcastle market as late as 1575. Sturgeon, and in the northern nations, whales, were early reserved as royalties; and in England, whales and great sturgeons taken in the sea were, by the Act 17 Edward II., to be the king’s, except in certain privileged places. In the dinner bills of the Goldsmiths’ Company, besides the ordinary fish, we find blote-fish, jowls and middles of sturgeons, salt lampreys, congers, pike, bream, bass, tench, and chub, a seal, and porpoise mentioned.

The red herring is included in an inquisition 28 Henry III.; and the Act of Parliament 31 Edward III., called the _Statute of Herrings_, shows the great request in which this most useful article of food was then held by the English.

Herrings by the _last_, or 10,000, were sent from Hull to London, and from Yarmouth to Hull, as also red herrings, in the time of Edward I.

The tariff of prices of fish, fixed by the same king, acquaints us with the rates at which the various kinds were sold. It limits the best soles to 3_d._ per dozen; the best turbot to 6_d_.; the best mackerel in Lent to 1_d._ each; the best pickled herrings to twenty the penny; fresh oysters to 2_d._ per gallon; a quarter of a hundred of the best eels to 2_d._; and other fish in proportion. ‘Congers, lampreys, and sea-hogs,’ are enumerated. Mackerel are first mentioned in 1247, as allowed to certain religions on the third day of the Rogation, and are noticed as a metropolitan cry in the ballad of _London Lickpenny_;[20] and ‘stokfish, salt fische, whyt herring, réde herring, salt salmon, salt sturgeon, salt eels, &c.,’ are mentioned as common provisions in the Earl of Northumberland’s household, in the reign of Henry VII.; and then formed part of every meal. Thus, ‘for my Lord and Ladie’s table,’ is to be bought, ‘ij pecys of salt fische, vj pecys of salt fische, vj becormed herryng, iiij white herryng, or a dish of sproots.’ And these breakfasts of salt fish extended through the household, whose separate departments, and the way they were to be served with this article, both in and out of Lent, are particularized, and afford a curious picture of the style of living in the ancient Catholic periods, and of the amazing use and consumption of salt-fish. In short, it formed part of the allowances of the King and the Nobility, of monastic establishments, and of all ranks of society.

The fish ordinaries still kept up at the taverns at Billingsgate, where all kinds of fish in season may be partaken of for a moderate charge at fixed hours, are but a continuation of a very old practice, although the locality is removed; for Stow tells us that Knightrider street, was famous ‘_for fish and fish dinners_;’ and he derives the name of Friday-street from fishmongers dwelling there and serving the _Friday_ markets.

Philip II. of Spain, the consort of Queen Mary gave a whimsical reason for not eating fish. ‘They are,’ said he, ‘nothing but element congealed, or a jelly of water.’

The broth or jelly of fish, which is usually thrown away, will be found one of the most nourishing animal jellies that can be obtained. It is a pity that those who find it difficult to obtain a sufficiency of nourishing food should not be aware of this, as they might thereby make a second meal of what otherwise yields but one. Supposing a poor family to buy a dinner of plaice, which is a cheap fish--the plaice would be boiled and the meat of the fish eaten, and the liquor and bones of the fish thrown away. Now, let the good housewife put the remains of the fish into the liquor and boil for a couple of hours, and she will find she has something in her pot, which, when strained off, will be as good to her as much of that which is sold in the shops as ‘gelatine.’ This she may use as a simple broth, or she may thicken it with rice, and flavor it with onion and pepper, and have a nourishing and satisfying meal; or, should she have an invalid in her family, one-third of milk added and warmed with it, would be nourishing and restoring.

Dr. Davy, in his _Angler and his Friend_, tells us, ‘There is much nourishment in fish, little less than in butcher’s meat, weight for weight; and in effect it may be more nourishing, considering how, from its softer fibre, fish is more easily digested. Moreover, there is, I find, in fish--sea-fish--a substance which does not exist in the flesh of land-animals, viz., iodine--a substance which may have a beneficial effect on the health, and tend to prevent scrofulous and tubercular disease, the latter in the form of pulmonary consumption, one of the most cruel and fatal with which civilized society, and the highly educated and refined are afflicted. Comparative trials prove that, in the majority of fish, the proportion of solid matter--that is, the matter which remains after perfect desiccation, or the expulsion of the aqueous part--is little inferior to that of the several kinds of butcher’s meat, game or poultry. And, if we give our attention to classes of people--classed as to quality of food they principally subsist on--we find that the ichthyophagous class are especially strong, healthy, and prolific. In no class than that of fishers do we see larger families, handsomer women, or more robust and active men, or greater exemption from maladies just alluded to.’

In the pastry cooks’ shops of Russia, the tempting morsel offered to Russian appetites is the _piroga_, an oily fish-cake. Little benches are ranged round tables, on which the favourite dainty is placed, covered over with an oily canvass, for it must be eaten hot. A large pot of green oil and a stand of salt are in readiness, and, as soon as a purchaser demands a piroga, it is withdrawn from its cover, plunged into the oil, sprinkled with salt, and presented dripping to the delighted Muscovite.

‘In some countries, fish, when tainted or even putrid is preferred to that which is fresh. The inhabitants of the banks of the Senegal and Orange rivers pound some small fish of the size of sprats in a wooden mortar, as they are taken from the stream, and afterwards make them up into conical lumps, like our sugar-loaves, which they dry in the sun. In this state, they soon become slightly decomposed, and give out a most unpleasant odour; notwithstanding which, these people consider them a luxury, and eat them dissolved in water, mixed with their kouskoussoo, or dough. Fish, prepared in a somewhat similar manner, is eaten by the Indians on the banks of the Orinoco.[21]’

In Beloochistan, the inhabitants feed almost entirely on fish; and their cattle are also fed on dried fish and dates mixed together.

No one who has observed a boiled fish upon the table can have passed unremarked the spinal column with its upward and downward processes, and the four transverse strips of flesh, adjusted alternately in different directions with strong semi-transparent tendons between. The spinous processes, proceeding from the vertebræ upward, support the dorsal fins, whilst the transverse processes downward, with curved bones, encircle partially the bulk of the body. Without being ribs, these latter resemble ribs. Those placed far forward represent the proper thoracic ribs of fishes, but have no direct connexion with the spine. There are other rib-like bones behind. These are abdominal appendages; very numerous in some fishes, such as the herrings, and very few,--and those few conveniently large,--in others, such as the perches and labruses. They are wanting in several of the osseous tribes, such as the Diodons and Tetradons, and are altogether non-existent in the cartilaginous fishes. It is from this fact--that so many of the West Indian fishes belong to the Percoid and Labroid families--that persons are so seldom troubled with what are called by the cook, ‘bony fishes.’--Hence, very little annoyance is experienced from the bones in the fish dishes there.

Very serious consequences have often arisen from eating fish or molluscs, which are poisonous or in an unhealthy state. All Ostraceans, Diodons, and Tetradons, are deleterious, and are to be treated as objectionable, if not absolutely dangerous fishes.

Every one acquainted with the bad reputation of the common mussel (_Mytilus edulis_) knows also the symptoms produced by the hurtful qualities of it, even when cooked--for it is not generally, like the oyster, eaten raw.

The mussels would seem to owe this injurious quality to feeding on the spawn of the star-fish (_Asteria_).

There are many persons who break out with irritative eruptions after eating certain descriptions of shell-fish, though they injure no other idiosyncrasies--others again are subject to diarrhœa from fish-diet, though the same food be harmless to other persons.

Almost all fishes are unwholesome at certain seasons, and hence the regulations laid down for the vend of oysters, lobsters, salmon, &c., only in prescribed periods. Science, in searching to determine the reason why this is the case, encounters certain wholesale occurrences which are due to some general, but at the same time, very specific causes. Mackerel sold in the New York market occasionally produce poisonous effects; and London is sometimes supplied with unwholesome salmon in large quantities.

Dr. Burroughs, in a paper on _Poisonous Fishes_, published last year in a Jamaica journal, remarks:

‘There are five obvious circumstances to be taken into consideration in the incidents of fish-poison.

‘1st. The existence of a _sanies_, from some disorder indicated in the living tissues of the animal.

‘2ndly. A natural deleteriousness in the flesh, without reference to a state of disease.

‘3rdly. The adventitious presence of something deleterious in the fish, from the food recently eaten.

‘4thly. The injury resulting from cooking fish with such large organs as the liver unextracted,--the liver being at all times dangerous as food in some particular fishes.

‘5thly. The poisonous putrefaction known to prevail in some fishes after 24 hours keeping. Morbid action set up in the healthy animal body that receives the putrefactive poison being indicated by oppression, nausea, giddiness, and general prostration.’

We might add a 6th,--the known existence of an irritating fluid,--issuing from the surface of some fishes of peculiar structure.

We know that fish liver contains an enormous quantity of oil; that fish oil is an important article of commerce, and fish liver oil is a valuable medicine; but we know beside, that these oils, in a corrupt state, are active poisons. Hence, we may infer that the liver is a great operator in the injury done by the deleterious fishes, and if we but knew all the genera in which the gall bladder is wanting, we might arrive at some rule for estimating the possible development of those prejudicial fluids that mingle from the liver with fish-flesh in cooking.

We must not overlook, when speaking of fish-liver, the adventure of Tobias and the Angel at the River Tigris, in chap. vi. of the Apocryphal Tobit. The heart and liver of the fish they took were a charm against evil spirits, and the gall was a salve for blind eyes; the one was used successfully in the nuptial chamber of Sarah, the daughter of Ragual, and the other as an ointment in restoring the sight of the blind Tobit. The two incidents are thus related. Ch. viii.--‘Tobias took the ashes of the perfumes, and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon, and made a smoke therewith--the which smell when the evil spirit had smelled, he fled into the utmost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him.’ Ch. xi.--‘Tobit stumbled, and his Son Tobias ran unto him, and strake of the gall on his Father’s eyes, and when his eyes began to smart, he rubbed them, and the whiteness pilled away from the corners of his eyes.’

There are but few natural orders of fishes--and they divide themselves for the purposes of our enquiry chiefly into the _Acanthopterygii_, or those that possess bony skeletons, with prickly, spinous processes on the dorsal fins, such as the perch, the mullet, and the gurnard; the _Malacopterygii_, or soft-finned fishes, including the carp, the salmon, &c.; and the _Chondropterygii_, with cartilaginous spines and bones, embracing such fish as the sturgeon, shark, and skate. Instead of describing or specifying them in consecutive order, it will perhaps be better to take a glance at the fishes of different seas, at least, as far as they are held in any repute as food. Many of the most common must, however, be passed over without notice.

It is strange how little attention, (comparatively speaking,) is paid even to our coast fisheries, and especially those of our colonies. Fisheries have been called the agriculture of the sea. Raleigh attributes the wealth and power of Holland, not to its commerce or carrying trade, but to its fisheries. Mirabeau was of the like opinion; De Witt held the same; and Franklin seemed to prefer the fisheries of America to agriculture itself. A great nursery of the marine is by this means best supported, from whence a constant supply of men, inured to the perils of the sea and the inclemency of the weather, is always ready for the maritime service of their country. Fishing has been celebrated from the earliest times, as being the prelude, and if I may be allowed the expression, the apprenticeship of navigation; offering, from the line to the harpoon, more amusement with less fatigue than perhaps any other species of pursuit, and occupying the smallest boat up to ships of great burthen; thus drawing forth the means of subsistence and profit to an infinite number of persons.

The ocean fish are generally very dry eating.

In eating the flesh of the bonito, it is necessary to lard it well, as its flesh is very dry.

The flesh of the tunny of the Atlantic is something like veal, but dryer and more firm.

That of the dolphin was formerly held in great esteem. It is also, however, very dry and insipid; the best parts are those near the head. It is seldom eaten now at sea, except when the fish caught happens to be young and tender.

In the Maldive Islands, the bonito is preserved in the following manner:--

The back bone is taken out, the fish laid in the shade, and occasionally sprinkled with sea water. After a certain period has elapsed, the fish is wrapped up in cocoa-nut leaves, and buried in sand, where it becomes hard. Fish thus prepared is known in Ceylon, and perhaps over all India, by the name of _cummelmums_. The pieces of this fish brought to the market have a horny hardness. It is rasped upon rice to render it savoury.

The Havana is, I believe, the only place where the flesh of the shark is exposed for sale in the markets, although it is often tasted at sea by the curious.

The shark, judging by an European palate, is not good eating; the flesh is dry and of an acid taste. The fins and tail are, however, very glutinous, and are the portions most relished by the seamen; and dried, they form an article of commerce to China, where they are used in soups, and considered an excellent aphrodisiac.

‘How thankful we ought to be to a bountiful Providence, who has created all things for us richly to enjoy,’ observed an alderman at the last great city dinner, whilst sumptuously regaling on turtle soup, crimped cod, with oyster sauce, and other delicacies. ‘The beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea,’ he continued, ‘were all created for the use of man.’

‘Very true,’ replied his next friend, ‘but if you had witnessed the hair-breadth escape which I experienced of being devoured alive by a shark, when in the West Indies, you would have been satisfied that the horrible monster entertained just the opposite opinion. He believed that man was created for him!’

Sharks, which are very numerous there, form a common article of food with the Gold Coast negroes, and hippopotami and alligators are occasionally eaten.

Mr. George Bennett informs us, that ‘the shark is eaten eagerly by the natives of the Polynesian Islands; and I have often seen them feasting on it in a raw state, when they gorge themselves to such an excess as to occasion vomiting.’

It is not an unfrequent source of illness among these islanders, and they suffer so much in consequence, as to lead them to suppose that their dissolution is nigh: but they cannot be persuaded that the eating of raw fish is the cause. An emetic soon removes the symptoms by removing the cause, and the sufferer considers the cure as almost miraculous. Sharks are caught on the New Zealand shores in great numbers, during the months of November, December, and January, by the natives, who use them as an article of food.

Shark hunting is most exciting sport.

He who has hooked the fish holds tight--like grim Death on his victim; and if you watch his face you will see powerful indication of excitement, mental and muscular; his teeth are set, his colour is heightened, the perspiration starts on his brow, while something like an oath slips through his lips as the cord, strained to the utmost, cuts into the skin of his empurpled fingers: he invokes aid, and with his feet jammed against stretcher, thwart, or gunwale, gradually shortens his hold. Meanwhile, the others, seizing lance and gaff-hook, stand by to assist the overtasked line, as the monster, darting hither and thither in silvery lightnings beneath the translucent wave, is drawn nearer and nearer the surface. ‘My eyes, he’s a whopper!’ cries the excited young boatman. ‘He’s off!’ shouts another, as the shark makes a desperate plunge under the boat, and the line, dragged through the hands of the holder, is again suddenly slackened. ‘He’s all right, never fear--belay your line a bit, sir, and look here,’ says the old fisherman. And sure enough there is the huge fish clearly visible, about ten feet under the keel of the boat, and from stem to stern about the same length as herself. ‘Now, sir, let’s have him up.’ And the instant the line is taut, the shark shoots upwards, his broad snout showing above the surface, close to the boat. Then comes a scene of activity and animation indeed. The fish, executing a series of summersaults, and spinning, gets the line into a hundred twists, and if once he succeed in bringing it across his jaws above the chain links--adieu to both fish and tackle. But, in the midst of a shower-bath, splashed up by the broad tail of the shark, both lance and gaff are hard at work. He is speared through and through, his giant struggles throwing waves of bloody water over the gunwales of the little boat; the gaffs are hooked through his tough skin, or within his jaws--for he has no gills to lay hold on; a shower of blows from axe, stretcher, or tiller, falls on his devoted head, and, if not considered too large, heavy, or dangerous, he is lugged manfully into the centre of the boat, and, threshing right and left with his tail to the last, is soon dispatched. A smart blow a few inches above the snout is more instantly fatal than the deepest stab. The school-shark is dealt with as above. But if the ‘grey-nurse,’ or old solitary shark be hooked, the cable is cut, or the grapnel hauled on board, and he is allowed to tow the boat as he darts away with the line. The tables, however, are soon turned upon him; and after being played (as this cruel operation in fishing is blandly styled) for a while, until some portion of his vast strength is exhausted, the line is drawn over a roller in the stern of the boat, the oars are set to work, and, towed instead of towing, the shark is drawn into some shallow cove near the shore, where his bodily powers avail him less than in deeper water; and after a fierce resistance, and some little risk to his assailants, he falls a victim to their attack. Man has as innate an horror of a shark as he has of a snake, and he who has frequented tropical climates, felt the absolute necessity of bathing, had his diurnal plunge embittered by the haunting idea of the vicinity of one of these sea-pests, and has occasionally been harrowed by accidents arising from their voracity--feels this antipathy with double force. There is, therefore, a species of delightful fury, a savage excitement, experienced by the shark-hunter, that has no affinity with the philosophy of Old Isaak’s gentle art. He revels in the animated indulgence of that cruelty which is inherent in the child of wrath; and the stings of conscience are blunted by the conviction that it is an act of justice, of retribution, of duty, he is engaged in, not one of wanton barbarity. These were precisely my own sensations when, drenched to the skin with showers of salt water, scorched to blisters by the burning sun, excoriated as to my hands, covered with blood, and oil, and dirt, and breathless with exertion, I contemplated the corpse of my first shark. Tiger-hunting is a more princely pastime; boar-hunting in Bengal Proper the finest sport in the world; fox-hunting an Englishman’s birthright; the chase of the moose is excellent for young men strong enough to drag a pair of snow shoes five feet long upon their toes; and Mr. Gordon Cumming tells you how man may follow the bent of his organ of destructiveness on the gigantic beasts of South Africa: shark-fishing is merely the best sport to be had in New South Wales; and affords a wholesome stimulation to the torpid action of life in Sydney. The humane or utilitarian reader will be glad to hear that the shark is not utterly useless after death. The professional fishermen extract a considerable quantity of excellent oil from the liver; and the fins cut off, cured, and packed, become an article of trade with China--whose people, for reasons best known to themselves, delight in gelatinous food. The most hideous to behold of the shark tribe is the wobegong, or woe-begone as the fishermen call it. Tiger-shark is another of the names of this fish. His broad back is spotted over with leopard-like marks; the belly is of a yellowish white; but to describe minutely so frightful a monster would be a difficult and ungracious task. Fancy a bloated toad, elongated to the extent of six or seven feet, and weighing some 20 stone; then cut off his legs, and you have a flattering likeness of the wobegong--two of which we killed this day. A heavy sluggish fish, he lies in wait for his prey at the edge of some reef of rocks, or bank of sea-weed; swallows the bait indolently; appears but little sensible to the titillation of the barbed hook, and is lugged hand over hand to the slaughter without much trouble or resistance. Neither lance nor gaff will penetrate his tough hide, but a blow on the head with an axe proves instantly fatal.’

The schnapper affords a long and strong pull at the line; and is considered by the colonists as one of their best table fish. ‘We killed one to-day,’ writes a correspondent, ‘weighing 21 lbs. The flat-head is half buried in the sand at the bottom, but bites freely; and is, in my mind, a much better fish than the former. Our fishing-basket of this day comprised nine sharks, four schnappers, and about 40 flat-heads.’

The picked shark (_Galeus acanthias_) is very common about the coasts of Scotland, where it is taken in order to be prepared for sale, by splitting and drying; and is then much used as food among the poorer classes.

In some parts of Scotland the large spotted dog-fish constitute no inconsiderable part of the food of the poor. In North America, they are principally caught for their oil. If very large, the liver will yield a barrel of oil, or about thirty gallons. In Nova Scotia, the dried bodies are sold at 2_s._ 6_d._ the hundred, for feeding pigs. During the winter, from November till May, two fish, boiled or roasted, are given per day to a good sized store pig.

In 1842, in consequence of the great havoc committed by the swarms of sharks on the fishing banks on the coast of Finmark, eight vessels were fitted out at Hammerfest, expressly for the purpose of shark fishing, and no less than 20,000 of these rapacious fish were taken, without any apparent diminution in their numbers. The shark oil obtained from them was about 1,000 barrels.

There are shark fisheries on the eastern coast of Africa, and in several parts of the Indian Ocean, for the sake of the fins, which are exported to China. About 7,000 cwt. were imported into Canton, in 1850, chiefly from India and the Eastern Archipelago. From 7,000 to 10,000 cwt. of sharks’ fins are shipped annually from Bombay, and about 1,400 cwt. from the Madras territories, to China. Sumatra, Manila, Malacca, Arracan, and the Tenasserim Provinces, also send large quantities.

Dr. Buist, of Bombay, in a communication to the Zoological Society, in 1851, stated, ‘that there are thirteen large boats, with twelve men in each, constantly employed in the shark fishery at Kurrachee; the value of the fins sent to market varying from 15,000 to 18,000 rupees (£1500 to £1800), or 1000 to 1200 rupees for each boat, after allowing the Banian or factor his profit. One boat will sometimes capture at a draught as many as 100 sharks of different sizes. The average capture of each boat probably amounts to about 3000, so as to give the whole sharks captured at not less than 40,000 a year. The great basking shark, or mhor, is always harpooned: it is found floating or asleep near the surface of the water.

‘The fish, once struck, is allowed to run till tired; it is then pulled in, and beaten with clubs till stunned. A large hook is now hooked into its eyes or nostrils, or wherever it can be got most easily attached, and by this the shark is towed on shore; several boats are requisite for towing. The mhor is often 40, sometimes 60, feet in length; the mouth is occasionally 4 feet wide. All other varieties of shark are caught in nets, in somewhat like the way in which herrings are caught at home. The net is made of strong English whip-cord; the meshes about 6 inches; they are generally 6 feet wide, and from 600 to 800 fathoms, or from three-quarters to nearly a mile, in length. On the one side are floats of wood about 4 feet in length, at intervals of 6 feet; on the other, pieces of stone. The nets are sunk in deep water, from 80 to 150 feet, well out at sea.

‘They are put in one day and taken out the next; so that they are down two or three times a week, according to the state of the weather, and success of the fishing. The lesser sharks are commonly found dead, the larger ones much exhausted. On being taken home, the back fins, the only ones used, are cut off, and dried on the sands in the sun: the flesh is cut off in long strips, and salted for food; the liver is taken out and boiled down for oil; the head, bones, and intestines left on the shore to rot, or thrown into the sea, where numberless little sharks are generally on the watch to eat up the remains of their kindred. The fishermen themselves are only concerned in the capture of the sharks. So soon as they are landed they are purchased up by Banians, on whose account all the other operations are performed. The Banians collect them in quantities, and transmit them to agents in Bombay, by whom they are sold for shipment to China.’

At the Bonin Islands, the colonists have trained their dogs to catch fish; and Dr. Ruschenburger, who visited the islands in the United States’ ship _Peacock_, tells us, ‘that two of these dogs would plunge into the water and seize a shark, one on each side, by the fin, and bring it ashore in spite of resistance.’

Blumenbach states, ‘that the white shark weighs sometimes as much as 10,000 lbs.; and even a whole horse has been found in its stomach.’ I may cite a few statements which have come under my notice in the course of newspaper reading:--

The _New Orleans Picayune_ tells the following:--‘We have read many fish stories, and they are generally of that tenour that the very name inclines one to disbelieve them. We have one to tell now, and, as we know the person who was the main actor in the incident, we can vouch for its being true, particularly as there is ocular evidence of the matter. Some days ago, the captain of a ship at anchor outside the Pass, threw overboard a shark hook baited, not expecting in the least, as the captain himself says, to catch anything of the fish tribe. There was hooked, however, a shark of the spotted kind, and, as it afterwards proved, a regular ‘man-eater.’ He had to be harpooned before his capture could be effected. His size and weight may be imagined from the fact, that it took 11 men to hoist him in, with a double lift on the main yard. The monster measured 17 feet 11 inches in length, from tail to snout, and 9 feet in circumference. He had seven rows of teeth, three of the rows being almost hidden in the upper gums. His liver exactly filled up a beef barrel. In his paunch was found the body of a man in a half decomposed state. So far as could be judged, the corpse was that of a well-dressed man, of medium-size--shirt white, with pearl buttons, coarse silk under-shirt, cotton socks, and shoes nearly new, of the Congress gaiter kind. The shark had also in his stomach several pieces of old canvas, such as are used by vessels on their rigging. The jawbone of this sea pirate has been brought up to the city. It is large enough to take in a sugar barrel.’

A shark was caught a year or two ago, by the boats of one of the East-end whaling establishments at Bermuda, which measured 18 feet in length. Its liver yielded 72 gallons of oil. The jaws, when detached from the body and extended to their full width, afforded space sufficient for three persons--the tallest at least 5 feet 10 inches--to stand erect within them. It had two-and-a-half rows of teeth.

The basking shark, or sun-fish (_Squalus maximus_), is the largest of the genus. The average size is about 25 feet long, by 18 in circumference, in the largest part. It often lies on the surface of the water, apparently sunning itself, and very frequently may be seen steadily swimming with its dorsal fin above the water. This species is viviparous, and possesses nothing of the fierceness and voracity so peculiar to the shark family.

A large one, caught not long ago in the Mersey river, Van Diemen’s Land, 14 feet long, upon hoisting it upon deck, gave birth to 23 young ones, each about 18 inches long.

‘Some 25 years since, the capture of this valuable fish was prosecuted very successfully from Innis Boffin and the vicinity of Westport, at which town, as well as Newport, there were works erected for trying out the oil. About that date, as much as five pipes of oil of 120 gallons were received by one Dublin house alone per season. It has much decreased of late years, which is attributable rather to the decline of the means of pursuit than to the absence of the fish, as it is seen every year in large numbers on the distant banks, and occasionally close to the shore in packs of 25 or 30, in very fine weather. There were four taken at Galway this year, and many were seen in the vicinity of the Arran Islands. The liver has hitherto been considered the only valuable part, averaging 30 cwts., and containing about 180 gallons of fine oil, second only to sperm, and selling from 4_s._ to 5_s._ per gallon. The carcase, which may be estimated at from four to five tons, is of a gelatinous character, consequently of great value; _it is now thrown away as useless_. Neither skill nor courage is required in the capture; it being of a sluggish nature, and literally presenting its most vulnerable part to the harpoon.’[22]

A correspondent of the _New York Tribune_, writing from Stone Bridge House, Tiverton, Rhode Island, says:--‘A party of ladies and gentlemen, on the evening of the 4th, caught and hauled about 20 of these monsters (sharks) upon the bridge, measuring from 3 to 5 feet. The sport is generally continued from twelve until nine o’clock in the evening, and as each new-comer is laid at his scaly length up the stone causeway, the ‘head-ache stick,’ as Uncle Ned quaintly calls it, is applied to his hard sconce, until all propensity for biting off swimmers’ legs has disappeared. One Deacon Smith caught, on the same evening, an enormous shark, which on being beached, measured over 7 feet across the fins. But the crowning sport was reserved for the next day, when Mr. R. W. Potter, of Pawtucket, went off with a party, among whom were several ladies, and fastened to a huge shark, of the mackerel species. The monster, on taking the bait and finding himself hooked, went off with the line, like a harpooned whale, despite all efforts to hold him. Having a small tow-boat at hand, Mr. P. took to that, and paid out, the shark towing him rapidly a long distance into the bay, when, getting tired, returned, and came toward the little boat with expanded jaws, and made desperate fight to extricate himself, snapping at the line to bite it off, and then throwing up his tail, would again shoot off rapidly, carrying the boat after him, spinning through the water. Hauling him cautiously back, however, he was at last mastered by repeated vigorous blows with the end of the oar, which was finally run down the rascal’s throat, in which condition he was towed ashore. It required the united strength of six men, with a stout rope, to haul the creature upon the beach, and he measured, from the tip of his nose, over the fin, to the end of his tail, 3 feet 9 inches.’