[143] Kritisk Öfversigt of Finlands Fisk-Fauna, Helsingfors, 1863.
[144] See Günther, Zoological Record for 1864, p. 137.
[145] Salmo fario L., in Europe; Salmo labrax Pallas, etc., in Asia; Salmo gairdneri Richardson, in streams of the Pacific Coast; Salmo perryi, in Japan; Salmo clarki Richardson, throughout the Rocky Mountain range to the Mexican boundary and the headwaters of the Kansas, Platte, and Missouri.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
FISHES AS FOOD FOR MAN
The Flesh of Fishes.—Among all races of men, fishes are freely eaten as food, either raw, as preferred by the Japanese and Hawaiians, or else as cooked, salted, dried, or otherwise preserved.
The flesh of most fishes is white, flaky, readily digestible, and with an agreeable flavor. Some, as the salmon, are charged with oil, which aids to give an orange hue known as salmon color. Others have colorless oil which may be of various consistencies. Some have dark-red flesh, which usually contains a heavy oil which becomes acrid when stale. Some fishes, as the sharks, have tough, coarse flesh. Some have flesh which is watery and coarse. Some are watery and tasteless, some dry and tasteless. Some, otherwise excellent, have the muscular area, which constitutes the chief edible part of the fish, filled with small bones.
Relative Rank of Food-fishes.—The writer has tested most of the noted food-fishes of the Northern Hemisphere. When properly cooked (for he is no judge of raw fish) he would place first in the ranks as a food-fish the eulachon, or candle-fish (Thaleichthys pacificus).
