The Sea and Its Living Wonders: A Popular Account of the Marvels of the Deep and of the Progress of Martime Discovery from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeHartwig, G. (Georg)
History
The Sea and Its Living Wonders: A Popular Account of the Marvels of the Deep and of the Progress of Martime Discovery from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Hartwig, G. (Georg)
Animal behavior; Discoveries in geography; Discoveries in geography -- History; Marine animals; Marine plants; Ocean
The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed by the
phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers for the British
market. A small river, bearing the significant name of Laxaa or Salmon
river, has been rented for the trifling sum of 100_l._ a year by an
English company which sends every spring its agents to the spot,
well provided with the best fishing apparatus. The captured fish are
immediately boiled and hermetically packed in tin boxes, so that they can
be eaten in London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other
valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us a similar tribute;
and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the railway, extends her
empire, rivers more and more distant are made to supply the deficiencies
of our native streams. More than 150,000 salmon are annually caught in
Aljaska--not a quarter of a century ago a real "ultima Thule"--and after
having been well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are
chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg.
Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia and New Zealand;
but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved for a very long time, they
have been transported with perfect success to those far-distant colonies.
[Illustration: Tunny.]
If neither the salmon, nor the common herring, nor the cod, dwell in the
Mediterranean, the fishermen of that sea rejoice in the capture of the
Tunny, the chief of the mackerel or scomberoid family. Its usual length
is about two feet, but it sometimes grows to eight or ten; and Pennant
saw one killed in 1769, when he was at Inverary, that weighed 460 pounds.
The flesh is as firm as that of the sturgeon, but of a finer flavour.
"In May and June," says Mr. Yarrell, "the adult fish rove along the coast
of the Mediterranean in large shoals and triangular array. They are
extremely timid, and easily induced to take a new and apparently an open
course, in order to avoid any suspected danger. But the fishermen take
advantage of this peculiarity for their destruction by placing a look-out
or sentinel on some elevated spot, who makes the signal that the shoal
of tunnies is approaching, and points out the direction in which it will
come. Immediately a great number of boats set off, range themselves in a
curved line, and, joining their nets, form an enclosure which alarms the
fish, while the fishermen, drawing closer and closer, and adding fresh
nets, still continue driving the tunnies towards the shore, where they
are ultimately killed with poles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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