FISHES AND MANKIND 399 



dried fish is a staple article of food among people of all classes. 

 Generally the fish are simply cut open, gutted, and laid in the 

 sun to dry, but sometimes they are first salted to some extent. 

 The well-known "Bombay Duck," that indispensable adjunct 

 to an Indian curry, consists of the dried and salted bodies of the 

 Bummalow (Harpodon), a fish which is particularly abundant 

 in the estuaries of Bengal and Burma. 



Canning is a comparatively modern method of preservation, 

 and has many obvious advantages over the others. In America 

 it has become a very important industry, particularly the 

 canning of Pacific Salmon, carried on from Alaska to California. 

 The total value of the tinned Salmon produced by North 

 America is about fifty-six milHon dollars, and that of Sardines, 

 an industry centred mainly on the coast of Cahfornia on 

 the Pacific, and the coast of Maine on the Atlantic side, about 

 fifteen million dollars. In Europe, Herrings, Sprats, Sardines, 

 Anchovies, Mackerel, and Tunnies are all tinned, the Sardme 

 industry of France, Spain, and Portugal being of great coni- 

 mercial importance to these nations. The Sardine is not, as is 

 often supposed, a distinct species offish, but the young stage of 

 the Pilchard. The method of curing consists in removing the 

 head and viscera by hand, springing hghtly with salt, im- 

 mersing for a short time in brine, washing, drying, and then 

 frying for about two minutes in olive oil. The fish are then 

 packed in oUve oil in tins, which are finally hermetically sealed, 

 other ingredients such as oil of lemon, cloves, bay, truffles, or 

 pickles being sometimes used to give added flavour. A similar 

 trade is carried on to a large extent in Norway, but here the 

 fish used is the Sprat (Brisling) or the young of the Herring. 



In some countries fish are pickled in vinegar or cured m one 

 or two other unusual ways, while among the other food products 

 which are derived from the flesh of fish may be mentioned 

 fish sausages, rissoles, anchovy paste, the Delicatessen of 

 Germany, fish cake of Japan, and caviare. This last is manu- 

 factured principally from the roes of the Sturgeons, the great 

 caviare industries being carried on round the Black Sea and 

 Caspian Sea, where these fishes are numerous. At one of 

 the fishing stations in this region it has been estimated that as 

 many as fifteen thousand Sturgeons have been caught in a 

 single day. In Great Britain the Sturgeon is a "Royal Fish," 

 for by an unrepealed law of Edward II it is enacted that "the 

 King shall have the wreck of the sea throughout the realm, 

 whales and great sturgeons . . . except in certain places 



