296 SUPPLEMENT ON 



and even speaks no further of it in his Systema, this species 

 became totally forgotten. 



What was more singular, was, that it should also have been 

 effaced from the memory of the gourmands. Well known in 

 Paris in the sixteenth century, under the name of maigre, as 

 all the authors of that period relate, it is no longer known 

 there under any name. It seldom happens that one or two 

 individuals are seen in the course of the year in the shops of 

 fishmongers, and they are so little in estimation that they 

 have been sold at Dieppe, and those of the largest size, for 

 ten and twelve francs. M. Cuvier however attests, from his 

 own experience, that the flesh, though a little dry, is excellent 

 eating, in whatever manner it may be prepared. 



As they are generally obliged to sell the maigre in pieces, 

 and as the head is the most esteemed part, the Roman fisher- 

 men were formerly in the custom of presenting this head, as 

 well as that of the sturgeon, to the then magistrates, named 

 conservators of the city, as a sort of tribute, so that they could 

 only be eaten at their tables, or by their courtesy. 



To this species belongs at the present day the Genoese 

 name of fegaro, which has hitherto only been mentioned by 

 Belon, but erroneously applied by him to a bearded species 

 like the umbrina, if indeed this be not a variety. 



At Nice they name this fish Jigou. M. Risso has described 

 and represented it in his first edition, under the name of 

 perseque vanloo, but without remarking its identity with those 

 of which his predecessors had spoken, and giving to the first 

 dorsal a configuration far from exact. Since that time M. 

 Risso being at Paris recognized his fish in the two maigres, 

 which Delalande had brought from Toulon, and in his second 

 edition he names it sciana aquila. 



The brilliant colours which he attributes to it, prove the 

 justness of the observations of Belon, on the brilliancy which 

 the scales of the maigre assume in the Mediterranean. 



