The Harvest of the Sea / A contribution to the natural and economic history of the British food fishes

by James Glass Bertram

About two years ago an old story about the eel was gravely revived by having the larger portion of a little book devoted to its elucidation—an old story seriously informing us that the silver eel is the product of a black beetle. But no one need wonder at a new story about the eel, far less at the revival of this old one; for the eel is a fish that has at all times experienced the greatest difficulty in obtaining recognition as being anything at all in the animal world, or as having respectable parentage of even the humblest kind. In fact, the study of the natural history of the eel has been hampered by old-world romances and quaint fancies about its birth, or, in its case, may I not say invention? “The eel is born of the mud,” said one old author. “It grows out of hairs,” said another. “It is the creation of the dews of evening,” exclaimed a third. “Nonsense,” emphatically uttered a fourth controversialist, “it is produced by means of electricity.” “You are all wrong,” sserted a fifth, “the eel is generated from turf;” and a sixth theorist, determined to outdo all the others and come nearer the mark than any of his predecessors, assures the public that the young fish are grown from particles scraped off the old ones! The beetle theorist tells us that the silver eel is a neuter, having neither milt nor roe, and is therefore quite incapable of perpetuating its kind; and, in short, that it is a romance of nature, being one of the productions of some wondrous lepidopterous animals seen by Mr. Cairncross (the author of the work alluded to) about the place where he lived in Forfarshire, its other production being of its own kind, a black beetle! The story of the rapid growth and transformation of the salmon is—as will by and by be seen—wonderful enough in its way, but it is certainly far surpassed by the extraordinary silver eel, which is at one and the same time a fish and an insect.

There can be no doubt that the eel is a curious enough animal even without the extra attributes bestowed upon it by this very original naturalist, for that fish is in many respects the opposite of the salmon: it is spawned in the sea, and almost immediately after coming to life proceeds to live in brackish or entirely fresh water. It is another of the curious features of fish life that about the period when eels are on their way to the sea, where they find a suitable spawning-ground, salmon are on their way from the sea up to the river-heads to fulfil the grand instinct of their nature—namely, reproduction. The periodical migrations of the eel, on which instinct has been founded the great fishing industry of Comacchio, on the Adriatic, described in another portion of this volume, can be observed in all parts of the globe, and they take place, according to the climate, at different periods from February to May; the fish frequenting such canals or rivers as have communication with the sea. The myriads of young eels which ascend are almost beyond belief; they are in numbers sufficient for the population of all the waters of the globe—that is, if there were protective laws to shield them from destruction, or reservoirs in which they might be preserved to be used for food as required. The eel, indeed, is quite as prolific as the generality of sea fish. As a corroboration of the prolificness of the animal, it may be stated that eels have been noted—but that was some years ago—to pass up the river Thames from the sea at the extraordinary rate of eighteen hundred per minute! This montee was called eel-fair.

It is clear from certain facts in the history of this peculiar animal that, like all other fish, it can suit its life and growth to whatever circumstances it may be placed in, and seems to be quite able to multiply and replenish its species in rivers and lakes as well as in the sea. In Scotland eels are very seldom eaten, a strong prejudice existing in that country against the fish on account of its serpentine shape; but for all that the eel is a nutritious and palatable fish, and is highly susceptible of the arts of the cook. At one time the eel was thought to be viviparous, but naturalists now know better, having found out that eels produce their young in the same way as most other fish do.

It would be interesting, and profitable as well, to know as much of any one of our sea fish as we now know of the salmon, but so little progress is being made in observing the natural history of fish that we cannot expect for some time to know much more than we do at present; everything in the fish world seems so much to be taken for granted that we are still inclined rather to revive the old traditions than to study or search out new facts. Naturalists are so ignorant of how the work of growth is carried on in the fish world—in fact, it is so difficult to investigate points of natural history in the depths of the sea—that we cannot wonder at less being known about marine animals than about any other class of living beings.

It is the want of precise information about the growth of the fish that has of late been telling heavily against our fisheries, for in the meantime all is fish that comes to the fisherman’s net, no matter of what size the animals may be, or whether or not they have been allowed time to perpetuate their kind. No person, either naturalist or fisherman, knows how long a period elapses from the date of its birth before a turbot or codfish becomes reproductive. It is now well known, in consequence of the repeated experiments made with that fish, that the salmon grows with immense rapidity, a consequence in some degree of its quick digestive power. The codfish, again—and I reason from the analogy of its greatly slower power of digesting its food and from other corroborative circumstances—must be correspondingly slow in its growth; but people must not, in consequence of this slow power of digestion, believe all they hear about the miscellaneous articles often said to be found in the stomach of a codfish, as a large number of the curiosities found in the intestinal regions of his codship are often placed there by fishermen, either by way of joke or in order to increase the weight and so enhance the price of the animal.

As regards the natural history of one of our best-known food fishes, I have taken the pains to compile a brief precis of its life from the best account of it that is known, keeping in the background at present any knowledge or speculation of my own regarding it. I allude to the mackerel; and the following facts are from an evidently well-studied chapter of Mr. Jonathan Couch’s Fishes of the British Islands, by which it will be at once seen that our knowledge of the growing power of this well-known fish is very defective.

1. Mackerel, geographically speaking, are distributed over a wide expanse of water, embracing the whole of the European coasts, as well as the coasts of North America, and this fish may be caught as far southward as the Canary Islands. 2. The mackerel is a wandering unsteady fish, supposed to be migratory, but individuals are always found in the British seas. 3. This fish appears off the British coasts in quantity early in the year; that is, in January and February. 4. The male kind are supposed to be more numerous than the female. 5. The early appearance of this fish is not dependent on the weather. 6. The mackerel, like the herring, was at one time supposed to be a native of foreign seas. 7. This fish is laden with spawn in May, and it has been known to deposit its eggs upon our shores in the following month.

Such is a brief resumé of Mr. Couch’s chapter on the mackerel.

Now, we have no account here of how long it is ere the spawn of the mackerel quickens into life, or at what age that fish becomes reproductive, although in these two points is unquestionably obtained the key-note to the natural history of all fishes, whether they be salmon or sprats. In fact—and it is no particular demerit of Mr. Couch more than of every other naturalist—we have no precise information whatever on this point of growth power. We have at best only a few guesses and general deductions, and we would like to know as regards all fish—1st, When they spawn; 2d, How long it is ere the spawn quickens into life; and 3d, At what period the young fish will be able to repeat the story of their birth. These points once known—and they are most essential to the proper understanding of the economy of our fisheries—the chief remaining questions connected with fishing industry would be of comparatively easy solution, and admit of our regulating the power of capture to the natural conditions of supply.