OF FISH USUALLY TAKEN UPON OUR COASTS.
[1577, Book III., Chapter 10; 1587, Book III., Chapter 3.]
I have in my description of waters, as occasion hath served, treated of
the names of some of the several fishes which are commonly to be found in
our rivers. Nevertheless, as every water hath a sundry mixture, and
therefore is not stored with every kind, so there is almost no house, even
of the meanest boors, which hath not one or more ponds or holes made for
reservation of water unstored with some of them, as with tench, carp,
bream, roach, dace, eels, or such like as will live and breed together.
Certes it is not possible for me to deliver the names of all such kinds of
fishes as our rivers are found to bear; yet, lest I should seem injurious
to the reader in not delivering as many of them as have been brought to my
knowledge, I will not let to set them down as they do come to mind.
Besides the salmon therefore, which are not to be taken from the middest
of September to the middest of November, and are very plentiful in our
greatest rivers, as their young store are not to be touched from mid April
unto Midsummer, we gave the trout, barbel, graile, pout, cheven, pike,
gudgeon, smelt, perch, menan, shrimps, crevises, lampreys, and such like,
whose preservation is provided for by very sharp laws, not only in our
rivers, but also in plashes or lakes and ponds, which otherwise would
bring small profit to the owners, and do much harm by continual
maintenance of idle persons, who would spend their whole time upon their
banks, not coveting to labour with their hands nor follow any good trade.
Of all these there are none more prejudicial to their neighbours that
dwell in the same water than the pike and eel, which commonly devour such
fish or fry and spawn as they may get and come by. Nevertheless the pike
is friend unto the tench, as to his leech and surgeon. For when the
fishmonger hath opened his side and laid out his rivet and fat unto the
buyer, for the better utterance of his ware, and cannot make him away at
that present, he layeth the same again into the proper place, and sewing
up the wound, he restoreth him to the pond where tenches are, who never
cease to suck and lick his grieved place, till they have restored him to
health, and made him ready to come again to the stall, when his turn shall
come about. I might here make report how the pike, carp, and some other of
our river fishes are sold by inches of clean fish, from the eyes or gills
to the crotch of the tails, but it is needless: also how the pike as he
ageth receiveth divers names, as from a _fry_ to a _gilthead_, from a
_gilthead_ to a _pod_, from a _pod_ to a _jack_, from a _jack_ to a
_pickerel_, from a _pickerel_ to a _pike_, and last of all to a _luce_;
also that a salmon is the first year a _gravellin_, and commonly as big as
a herring, the second a _salmon peal_, the third a _pug_, and the fourth a
_salmon_: but this is in like sort unnecessary.
I might finally tell you how that in fenny rivers' sides, if you cut a
turf, and lay it with the grass downwards upon the earth in such sort as
the water may touch it as it passeth by, you shall have a brood of eels.
It would seem a wonder; and yet it is believed with no less assurance by
some, that than a horse hair laid in a pail full of the like water will in
a short time stir and become a living creature. But sith the certainty of
these things is rather proved by few than the certainty of them known unto
many, I let it pass at this time. Nevertheless this is generally observed
in the maintenance of fry as well in rivers as in ponds, that in the time
of spawn we use to throw in faggots made of willow and sallow (and now and
then of bushes for want of the other), whereby such spawn as falleth into
the same is preserved and kept from the pike, perch, eel, and other fish,
of which the carp also will feed upon his own, and thereby hinder the
store and increase of proper kind. Some use in every sixth or seventh
year to lay their great ponds dry for all the summer time, to the end they
may gather grass, and a thin swart for the fish to feed upon; and
afterwards store them with breeders, after the water be let anew again
into them. Finally, when they have spawned, they draw out the breeders,
leaving not above four or six behind, even in the greatest ponds, by means
whereof the rest do prosper the better: and this observation is most used
in carp and bream. As for perch (a delicate fish), it prospereth
everywhere, I mean so well in ponds as rivers, and also in moats and pits,
as I do know by experience, though their bottoms be but clay. More would I
write of our fresh fish, if any more were needful: wherefore I will now
turn over unto such of the salt water as are taken upon our coasts. As our
fowls therefore have their seasons, so likewise have all our sorts of sea
fish: whereby it cometh to pass that none, or at least very few of them,
are to be had at all times. Nevertheless the seas that environ our coasts
are of all other most plentiful; for as by reason of their depth they are
a great succour, so our low shores minister great plenty of food unto the
fish that come thereto, no place being void or barren, either through want
of food for them or the falls of filthy rivers, which naturally annoy
them. In December therefore and January we commonly abound in herring and
red fish, as rochet and gurnard. In February and March we feed on plaice,
trouts, turbot, mussels, etc. In April and May, with mackerel and cockles.
In June and July, with conger. In August and September, with haddock and
herring: and the two months ensuing with the same, as also thornback and
ray of all sorts: all which are the most usual, and wherewith our common
sort are best of all refreshed.
For mine own part, I am greatly acquainted neither with the seasons, nor
yet with the fish itself: and therefore, if I should take upon me to
describe or speak of either of them absolutely, I should enterprise more
than I am able to perform, and go in hand with a greater matter than I can
well bring about. It shall suffice therefore to declare what sorts of
fishes I have most often seen, to the end I may not altogether pass over
this chapter without the rehearsal of something, although the whole sum
of that which I have to say be nothing indeed, if the performance of a
full discourse hereof be anything hardly required.
Of fishes, therefore, as I find five sorts (the flat, the round, the long,
the legged, and shelled), so the flat are divided into the smooth, sealed,
and tailed. Of the first are the plaice, the but, the turbot, birt, fluke
or sea flounder, doree, dab, etc. Of the second the soles and thornback,
whereof the greater be for the most part either dried and carried into
other countries, or sodden, soused, and eaten here at home, whilst the
lesser be fried or buttered soon after they be taken, as provision not to
be kept long for fear of putrefaction. Under the round kinds are commonly
comprehended lumps (an ugly fish to sight, and yet very delicate in eating
if it be kindly dressed), the whiting (an old waiter or servitor in the
court), the rochet, sea bream, pirle, hake, sea trout, gurnard, haddock,
cod, herring, pilchard, sprat, and such like. And these are they whereof I
have best knowledge, and are commonly to be had in their times upon our
coasts. Under this kind also are all the great fish contained, as the
seal, the dolphin, the porpoise, the thirlepole, whale, and whatsoever is
round of body, be it never so great and huge. Of the long sort are
congers, eels, garefish, and such other of that form. Finally, of the
legged kind we have not many, neither have I seen any more of this sort
than the polypus, called in English the lobster, crayfish (or _crevis_),
and the crab. As for the little crayfishes, they are not taken in the sea,
but plentifully in our fresh rivers in banks, and under stones, where they
keep themselves in most secret manner, and oft, by likeness of colour with
the stones among which they lie, deceive even the skilful takers of them
except they use great diligence. Carolus Stephanus, in his _Maison
Rustique_, doubted whether these lobsters be fish or not; and in the end
concludeth them to grow of the purgation of the water, as doth the frog,
and these also not to be eaten, for that they be strong and very hard of
digestion. But hereof let other determine further.
I might here speak of sundry other fishes now and then taken also upon our
coasts; but, sith my mind is only to touch either on all such as are
usually gotten, or so many of them only as I can well rehearse upon
certain knowledge, I think it good at this time to forbear the further
intreaty of them. As touching the shelly sort, we have plenty of oysters;
whose value in old time for their sweetness was not unknown in Rome
(although Mutianus, as Pliny noteth, lib. 32, cap. 6, prefer the Cyzicene
before them), and these we have in like manner of divers quantities, and
no less variety also of our mussels and cockles. We have in like sort no
small store of great whelks, scallops, and periwinkles, and each of them
brought far into the land from the sea coast in their several seasons. And
albeit our oysters are generally forborne in the four hot months of the
year (that is to say, May, June, July, and August) which are void of the
letter R, yet in some places they be continually eaten, where they are
kept in pits, as I have known by experience. And thus much of our sea
fish, as a man in manner utterly unacquainted with their diversity of
kinds, yet so much have I yielded to do, hoping hereafter to say somewhat
more, and more orderly of them, if it shall please God that I may live and
have leisure once again to peruse this treatise and so make up a perfect
piece of work of that which, as you now see, is very slenderly attempted
and begun.