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.