1853.] IN 689 THE LAST OF THE FINS. no one family of the deep are the deficiencies of the ancients, when brought into comparison with the exuberant produce of our own markets, so strikingly exemplified as in that of the cod and his next of kin. With the cod proper (Gadus Morrhua), the haddock (G. Egilfinus), dorse (G. Mulangus), coal fish (G. Carbonarius), pollack (G. Pollachius), ling or burbot (G: Lota), they had no acquaintance whatever; indeed with the exception of the hake, which abounds in the Mediterranean, and is an excellent fish wherever it swims, together with a few delicate but pigmy codlings of its own, almost all the better members of this family repudiating the tepid waters of southern seas,†never offered to the cooks and connoisseurs who inhabited their shores any individuals worthy a sauce. But though the ancient kitchens saw no specimens of the elite of the Dogger Bank, or Newfoundland, we cannot consent to pass over some of the more interesting species wholly sub silentio; and as in speaking of the Clupean race we felt ourselves imperatively called on not to give herrings the go by, albeit unknown to Greek Agora or Latin forum; so here, prefatory to a notice of the classic gadus merlucius or hake, we shall pause to make some observations on the potbellied gastrocharybdic cod, and on one or two other of the race, to which salted or fresh, mankind is almost as much indebted as to the cod itself. Some of the gadean etymologies are so strange that we cannot forbear giving the reader a sample. yacos (Gr.) and gadus (Latin), are said to come from the Syrian word gad (fish), and there is a Syrian queen mentioned in Athenæus whose name is Atergadis, i.e. Venus fish. The Greeks and Romans restricted the word to a particular species of the present group, and by a third caprice of nomenclature it now stands for a whole genus in modern icthyology. With regard to our own trivial name for the caput' of this tribe. The word cod,' says Cuvier (what ears some naturalists must have), 'is derived from gadus, which it resembles in sound.' Cod meant originally a purse, or nрa, and the fish was so called, says an ingenious finder of strange similitudes, ab aliqua marsupii similitudine. Aliqua, indeed! If that he spoke to one that's whishte, Or looketh on his booke; Ac Or talk not all in print or tune; Saye we this, coddes head (looke) This man doth want his common sense. And morue, its French equivalent, comes, says Belon, from the English merwel, a word which, like Cuvier, we are unable to find in any English author of our acquaintance. cording to Aldrovandi, the word morrue is a Marsellois patois for a person with thick blubber lips, and is thence applied by metonymy to a fish like the cod, whose labial appendages are quite in character with this description. Being ourself unacquainted with Marsellois patois, and warned by Belon's mistakes of the perils of dabbling in foreign etymologies, we leave all the responsibility of this to the manes of the literary executors of the venerable cidevant professor of natural history of Bologna. Egilfinus, the modern Latin designation for the haddock, is, according to the dictum of Rondolet, and another, from the English words eagle and fins, which as eagles do not commonly exhibit these appendages, we take leave to doubt. Hadou, the French for salt haddock, is evidently our own word gallicised. Of the trivial name of that most delicate of all gadeans,' the dorse, the meaning has not, that we are aware of, been even attempted; cal * Two of the best known of these are the G. Minatus, which is hawked about Naples (with another minute pisciculus of the next family of flats, the platessa nuda, with which it is taken in large quantities under the well-known cry of fiche and suace), and secondly masdeu di funnali (Phycis Mediterranea), which looks not unlike a tench, and is, as its name imports, peculiar to this sea. + It seems a singular though it is a certain fact that the luxurious and warm waters of the Mediterranean in place of improving the fishy fibre generally deteriorate it. Cuvier. larias,* its present Latin designation, is also a classic name, but incorrectly endorsed upon this species. The whiting is evidently so called from the silvery whiteness of its abdomen and under flanks. Merlangus, its icthyologic name, comes of course from merlan, but whence that comes still wants interpretation. Belon makes an amusing blunder regarding the nomenclature of the G. Carbonarius, a species next akin to this fish. In order to contrive a plausible derivation for this word he is necessitated first to mis-spell it, and for coal to read from a private manuscript of his own colle,' or glue fish; and having got thus far (ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute) he ingenuously wonders why this particular species should be selected out of a tribe, all of which yield large quantities of isinglass or fishglue, to receive a name derived from this substance which it yields in common with so many other individuals, several of whom furnish it in yet more copious supplies. Cuvier says that coal fish is derived from colin, a word by which French sailors are in the habit of designating it; this would do very well if the dark brown hue of the body, whence the northern words kohl and coal fish, and the corresponding Latin word carbonarius, used by Linnæus for the species, were not a better and the obvious one. After having fished for the pollack's (G. Pollachius) name for some time to no purpose, we at length give up the sport. As to the unde derivatur of the word burbot, which is a fresh water gadean, we are equally without information. Lastly, for the modern merlucius or sea pike, no fitter or more characteristic name could have been possibly bestowed on the all voracious fish that bears it. And now having called over the general muster-roll of names of the present section, we proceed to introduce a few to our readers ; and first the GADUS MORRHUA, OR COD.† It wulld be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this most serviceable fish: when, writes an accomplished author towards the commencement of the tenth century, Gaspard de Corte Real, a Portuguese gentleman, jealous of the Spaniards, and their rival in the desire of discovering new countries, cast anchor in the midst of the fogs of the savage coasts of a sterile island, on landing for the first time in Newfoundland, though he certainly did not think that he was opening for Europe a source of riches more profitable, equally certain, and far less inexhaustible than those which the proud rivals of his nation derived from the mines of Potosi, the conquest of which had been effected with such effusion of blood; the fact has so turned out, and a fish in other respects by no means remarkable, has become in the hands of almost every nation in Europe the origin of one of their most assured and lucrative branches of commerce. But though Newfoundland was thus discovered, and afterwards visited by the Norwegians as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries, its fishy depths appear to have remained generally unexplored, and its very existence on the globe for the most part lost sight of, till the region was once more revisited in the year 1497, by one John Cabot, in the pay of Henry VIII., who thereupon imposed on the whole of *There is a fish, perhaps a gadean, mentioned by Pliny, and called by him callarias, which some have supposed to be the haddock. Apprized of this, and going for a brief sojourn to the city of the Clyde, an easy etymologist might readily persuade himself that the never ceasing cry of caller haddie' under his window was tautological, and that callar and haddie was the Scotch mode of pronouncing Pliny's callarias, and our haddock vox et præterea! The haddock was unknown to Pliny, not being a Mediterranean fish. There is also a gadean, a Rhine fish not unlike the haddock, which those of the district salt and dry much after the manner of the Scotch in curing that species. They call it Aberdanum, and here again a too confiding etymologist on first seeing a spread eagled Egilfinus fresh smoked from Aberdeen would probably seek to connect the two words, though he would of course only lose his time, as is often done over a mere coincidence of sound! + Sable, a chevron between three cod fish naiant argent, are borne as arms by the family of Codd; and azure, three cod fish naiant in pale argent, are the arms of the family of Beck. (Moule.) 1853.] his evρnka, both island and mainland, the same name which at present is confined to the island exclusively. Cabot not only refound the land but discovered the cod, a discovery which he communicated on his return home, and of which many nations besides our own forthwith reaped the advantage, by setting up an extensive line of fisheries all along the east and south coasts of the island. Nor was the sea the only source of profit to those hardy sailors; the island itself for some time after it had been thus taken possession of, was found to be rich in bears, beavers, red foxes, martins, and hares, and a profitable trade was carried on with the Indians for the skins of these animals, which were then shipped to Ceylon. At first, deterred by the fears of a winter's campaign in this inhospitable region, no one seems to have thought of residing permanently at Newfoundland; by degrees, however, men took courage and made one or two attempts, which, though failures, led ultimately to others, of which the issue was more fortunate, and the success at last complete. The first Englishman who essayed to make Newfoundland his winter quarters was a merchant named Hoare, but after encountering great hardships he was at length compelled to give up the attempt, and to return to England. In 1583, a half brother of Sir W. Raleigh made a second attempt with five vessels and two hundred people to establish a colony there; his failure was more signal and disastrous than the first had been, ending in the total loss of the crews. In 1623, Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord Baltimore, actually formed a colony in the south-eastern part of the island, which he called Evalon, and over which he appointed his son governor. As this gentleman is reported to have repaired thither in order that he might freely enjoy the profession of the Catholic religion,' he could not have selected a more appropriate spotthe fogs of Newfoundland would be no doubt a fit subject for daily penance, and if he were opsophagist by inclination as well as by conscience, he might addict himself to the innocent unrestricted use of nothing more carnal than cod and salmon all the days of his life. Under our most religious and gracious King Carlo Dolce the Second, a tax which the French had hitherto paid to England in acknowledgment of our courtesy in letting them fish there, was abrogated, and our flourishing cod trade, which had at one time occupied eight thousand hands, and given employment to two hundred vessels, began to stagger, whilst that of France throve in proportion, and our Gallic neighbours were all cock-a-hoop; but Englishmen are not so easily bullied out of their rights: Dieu et mon droit is a motto which we do not write up everywhere in large letters for nothing. This was a lesson in which John Bull was now determined to instruct their gracious king and his graceless favourites. A princely cod merchant, in 1676, took with him one hundred and two twenty-gun ships, and two ships of war, and (in spite of French fortification) succeeded in a capture of so many not Frenchmen but cod, as brought him in no less a sum than 386,4007. What France could not effect by open force she next attempted by covert encroachment, and in spite of the treaty of Utrecht, which had awarded Newfoundland to the English, la grande nation again outwitted us, for in 1721 she had in her employ no less than four hundred vessels trading in cod, which quite eclipsed our own, and chiefly supplied the foreign markets with their morue. Emboldened by success they took, in 1762, during our first George's reign, forcible possession of the island, but had only salted their cod in peace for one year, when it was again wrested from them by the English. After various altercations on both sides, the French at length set fire to and consumed all our drying stages, which was a grievous loss, amply retaliated no doubt by the English. In view of this and similar acts of violence and misrule, I need not,' says Mr. Pitt in 1800, urge upon the House that the fishery of Newfoundland has been for two centuries the constant object of rivalship between the French and English.' And 'at this time' (1831), writes the author of the article Cod' in the Penny Cyclopædia, it is far from being placed on a satisfactory footing, though the sovereignty of the island as settled by the treaty of Utrecht remains undisputed. Fortunately for all men, cod, when fished for at a right depth (viz. at from twenty-five to fifty fathoms), are to be found in vast quantities in many other parts of the watery world, as well as over the summit of the great submarine mountain, which was for a time looked upon as their great and almost exclusive depôt. So long back as in the days of Edward IV., when English fishermen were strictly prohibited the cod trade in the isles of Sweden and Denmark, and were especially warned off the coasts of Iceland, the exports from these places was known to be so great, as to have induced our prudent Queen Elizabeth first to beg permission, and then to take French leave' to send her subjects to Iceland to fish during the reign of Christian the Fourth of Denmark. The Dogger Bank has long been famous as a submarine gite for cod, and deep sunk hordes of these fish are now known to lie close upon our own shores, and particularly to abound along the Norfolk and Lincoln coasts; whilst of late years a greater take of cod has been effected off those of New England, than from the fishery of Newfoundland itself; they are therefore a most widely distributed fish, and being exceedingly prolific as well, we have every reason to believe that remotest posterity will continue to eat cod and oyster sauce with as little stint as ourselves.* Twenty years ago it was computed that twenty thousand sailors were employed, who carried off 36,000,000 from Newfoundland alone; even on our own shores cod is sometimes so common as to become a drug in provincial markets, so that instances have occurred of very fine specimens finding no sale. Mr. Yarrell gives a remarkable instance of one weighing seventy pounds, sold at Scarborough for a shilling. The maintenance of the supply from these enormous and inexhaustible cod banks will not excite surprise when we consider the unprecedented fecundity of the females; in the abdomen of one mother, and she a moderate-sized coddess of nine pounds weight only, nine hundred thousand eggs have been discovered; what increase, then, in spite of every conceivable deduction, might we not expect from shoals so generally distributed, containing myriads in which many of the members are of much larger dimensions. It may not be out of place here to give a few particulars of the craft of cod-fishing, as it is pursued at Newfoundland, where, 'all we export for all our rich returns, is a little spirits, provisions, fishing lines, and fishinghooks;'t so that, as M. Lacepede observes, the matter is one worthy to engage the attention of all enlightened persons, philosophers and philanthropists; and therefore is he solicitous that the patriots of his own country should join with him in the Vow, que la grande nation lorsque elle verra luire le jour fortuné où l'olivier de la paix balancera sa tête sacrée, et les palmes du génie K. T. λ.... qu'elle n'oublie pas son zéle éclairé pour les-cod fisheries. From the same author we learn several interesting particulars respecting the mode of conducting these, whether on land or on ship board. He begins by informing us that nets were first employed, but when it was found that these were liable to laceration, and were not unfrequently swept away by marine monsters shut up in the mesh work, the fishermen at length adopted the plan, now universally pursued, of long-line fishing; the length of these lines varies with the time of year, being of from five to twenty fathoms during the shore fishing, which commences in April; and from thirty to forty fathoms when the crews follow the fish as they recede from the shore, and continue to take them at that depth till December, after which winter prorogues the proceedings. * This inference is borne out by what we read of their stratification in the sites where they occur, which is so dense and deep that nothing seems to affect it: in spite of the myriads upon myriads devoured by wild birds and ravenous sea monsters, and the quantity (a very small one comparatively) abstracted by man, all that is necessary in this fishery is to be incessantly dropping and drawing up the line; as long as the fisherman's arm is equal to the effort, so long he may count his fish by the time it requires to draw them up. + Burke. 1853.] The trading captains bring their vessels to the Bank as early as practicable in spring; the object of this being to secure a good station, which, when most of the shipping is already on the spot, may not be quite so easy to effect. When the vessels have cast anchor, the waters around speedily are enlivened with a flotilla of boats, sent out by their respective crews to procure bait; the baits used vary considerably, but owing to the great voracity of the fish, all are alike successful, cod, like sharks, swallowing not only all kinds of fish, and shell-fish, whole or in fragments, fresh or salted, but bolting bits of wood or red cloth, and sometimes, as appears from the subjoined anecdote, a whole book.* Their voracity is in a great measure accounted for by the rapidity of their assimilation, which enables them to convert haddock and other prey into cod in a few hours; and so potent is the action of the gastric juice, that it turns the shells of lobsters and crabs red, as if they had been recently boiled. In spite of the almost incessant bickerings of rival crews, certain by-laws, framed for the good of each ship, are rigidly adhered to; amongst these, it is enacted that the man who catches fewest fish (a point easily settled by counting the tongues) shall clean the deck and throw the heads overboard; to avoid which often cold, and, after a day's hard labour, always fatiguing job, the men are all eager to anticipate each other, and to apply themselves as early as may be to the morning's work. As soon as a fish has been hooked and hauled up (sometimes in his greediness he is caught by two fishermen at once, when he becomes the property of the one who hooks him nearest the eye) the captor removes the tongue, and hands him to a second executioner, the decolleur, who, cutting off the head, passes him over to another functionary, who cuts the body open, and ripping out the liver and intestines, puts him into the hands of the trancheur, to remove, by means of an exceedingly sharp knife, the ribs and upper vertebræ, and who then, either splitting him open from the head to the caudal fin, dresses him à plat; or if only from the gills to the anal fin, à la rond ;§ other hands having next carefully spunged and dried, he is then handed over to the salter, who rubs the carcase with one-sixth of its weight of salt, and then gives it over to the last man, who arranges all the carcases in rows, and finally barrels them. That part of the proceedings of the Petit Andrés and Trois Echelles, who first operate upon him, is given by Lacepede with the precision of an historian describing the execution of some state prisoner:-L'etêteur saisit d'abord la morue, en place à faux la tête sur le bord de la table, la cerne avec un couteau à deux tranchans, nommé couteau à éteter; quand la morue est decollée l'éteteur 6 A fish, furnishing the University of Cambridge with a religious feast, was the occasion of a tract entitled, Vox Piscis, or the Book Fish, containing three treatises, which were found in the belly of a cod in Cambridge market at midsummer eve, 1626. This fish is said to have been taken in Lynn deeps, and was carried to the Vice-Chancellor by the beadle on the discovery of a book within it: as it made its appearance at the commencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer were most expected, it was quaintly remarked, that this sea guest had brought his book and his carcase to furnish both' (Moule). It is to be hoped that the learning he brought in his belly was not so out of season as he himself must have been at midsummer. The parallel story of the shark who swallowed a log-book thrown overboard to him by a pirate, and afterwards repenting took the first hook that offered, and turned king's evidence so as to hang the villain by the revelation of the document in his inside, is doubtless familiar to most of our readers. + If a haddock be left on a small line for a tide over a cod bank, it generally disappears, and a cod is found occupying its place on the barbs; six hours are said to suffice for the conversion of any other fish into gadus morrhua. These are separated as soon as the fish is hauled up, and kept with the sounds for salting, as a great delicacy: this practice is, it appears, very ancient. § The fish of Egypt, as shown in the paintings on the walls of the Theban palaces (vide Caillard's Egypt) were divided lengthwise by a knife, not unlike that now used for splitting the cod fish of Newfoundland; their fish were cured with fossil salt, procured from the African Desert, sea salt being deemed by the priests impure.' (Moule.) |