CHAPTER III 



TEMPERATE REGIONS 



A trawl haul on the Great Sole Bank. 



Having sailed out of La Rochelle in the evening, the trawler has headed for the north-west 

 throughout the night and during the following day and night, voyaging for forty hours. At 

 dawn, very far from land on the long rolling swell of the open sea the crew sees great cargo-ships 

 that run from England to South America silhouetted against the horizon. The echo-sounder 

 reads 80 fathoms, for the ship is at the edge of the continental shelf in latitude 49° 30' N., longi- 

 tude ll^W. Below it, under the waves of the Celtic Sea, at a depth of 80 fathoms, is a sunken 

 continent extending from the south-west of Ireland to the region of Brittany. The courses of 

 ancient rivers are marked by deep-cut fjords which alternate with raised banks, the most west- 

 erly of which is the Great Sole, this bordering the valley which used to be the Severn estuary. 

 The waters of this once great river used to flow along undulating country right to the South of 

 Ireland, along country that has now disappeared under waters flown over by grey seagulls. 



The boat has just shot its trawl. Buoyed on top by glass floats and weighted along the 

 bottom by a large chain, the great mouth of the otter-trawl opens between two iron-shod doors. 

 It swallows the fishes in its path, taking them into an immense "stomach", a deep, close-meshed 

 pocket of the net which is further narrowed by the drag of the animals already caught. At 

 the end of the tow, the trawl is winched up alongside the ship and hoisted on deck by intricate 

 manoeuvres. As soon as it is opened from below, a mass of still living fishes spills out, jumping 

 about in their death-throes. Scarcely emptied, the trawl is put back into the sea, while the 

 crew sort the catch and stow it in ice in the hold. The practised eye of the skipper has judged 

 the value of his poundage and a smile appears on his weather-beaten face. He is quite happy, 

 for there is plenty of hake — and they are large. 



The hake (Merluccius merliiccins) is, in fact, one of the most valued fishes on the French 

 market. In the Central Market in Paris it is improperly called ("colin") "coalie", for this 

 name should be kept for a gadid, the green pollack (Gadus virens), the coalfish of the British. This 

 term "colin", which calls to mind charcoal, does not suit the hake with its light-grey colour- 

 ation. In the South of France it is called "merlan", a confusion with yet another very different 

 fish, the whiting. 



Hake are near relatives of the cod-hke fishes and for a long time were placed in this group. 

 They have a long body bearing two fins on the back and a single anal fin along the underside. 

 A. dark lateral line extends down each side of the fianks. The jaws of the bony head are strongly 



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