212 SURMULLET. 



are caught in a trawl, from the loss of their scales and 

 bruised condition, are still more prone to decay than such as 

 are taken in the trammel; and care in this respect is the more 

 necessary, as a large portion of their rich flavour depends on 

 the particular manner in which they are cooked. It is 

 necessary that the entrails (and especially the liver) should 

 remain within the fish when they are roasted or baked, and 

 they are rolled in paper to protect the skin from being unduly 

 scorched with the heat, — a mode of preparation, which, it is 

 not a little remarkable, has been practised for at least two 

 thousand years; as we learn from ^lian, who says that it was 

 the custom to roast them, and that skilful cooks professed to 

 hinder the belly from bursting by kissing the mouth of the 

 fish. — B. X, C 7. 



In no article of luxury does it appear that the Romans of 

 the emj)ire went to such extravagant, and even ridiculous ex- 

 tent as in regard to this fish; but that there is no exaggeration 

 in the statements of the poets, appears from the corroboration 

 afibrded by the sober relations of the moralists and historians. 

 The utmost pains and cost were bestowed on the formation 

 of ponds for preserving these fish, and thereby having them 

 always at hand; but unhappily success did not always attend the 

 effort, and Columella (De re Rustica, B. 8, C. 17,) informs us 

 that when caught, — it must be supposed in what we now term 

 a ground-sean — and turned into the pond, scarcely one in 

 several thousands survived to reward the care bestowed upon 

 them. This loss he ascribes to the nobility of the fish, which 

 spurned confinement; but we can more readily impute it to 

 the stagnant nature of the water, which admitted of little 

 change in a place where there existed only a very small 

 influence of the tide, and which therefore experienced renewal 

 only from the uncertain influx of waves when the wind might 

 chance to blow high and in a favourable direction. We speak of 

 the Surmullet as having been the subject of so much extrav- 

 agant attention, but there is reason to believe that what we 

 shall presently find occasion to mention, a2:)plies more directly 

 to the plain Red Mullet; — the next in order in our arrange- 

 ment, and much the most abundant along the coasts of the 

 Mediterranean, rather than to the larger and more ornamented 

 fish which chiefly abounds in Britain. But there was little 



