POLYPRION CERNIER. 185 



handsome dish." Its flesh, indeed, is beautifully white, but somewhat 

 coarse, and without any particular excellence of flavour ; being altogether 

 of too firm or tough a fibre to allow it to be called of first-rate quality. 

 Possessing a high degree of muscular irritability,* it requires to be kept 

 at least twenty-four hours before boiling ; and the tail-end is the best 

 part of the fish. The epicure's portion is the gelatinous skin and more 

 tender flesh amongst the interspinals at the root of the fins. It is sold 

 in the market by the pound throughout the year ; but is perhaps in most 

 abundance about Christmas. The price varies from half a bit (twopence- 

 halfpenny) to a bit (fivepence) the pound. I have taken it in spawn in 

 August ; but have not been able to detect any superiority of flavour in 

 it at one season above another. 



The Sherny in Madeira is only captured by the hook ; and though 

 shoals of small fishes, weighing from five to twenty pounds, and called 

 Chernotta, are said to be often taken near the surface, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of floating wreck or logs of wood, the proper habitat of the 

 full-sized fish, weighing from thirty to one hundred pounds, is from one 

 to two or three leagues from shore, and at the enormous depth of from 

 twelve to fifteen or sixteen linhas, or from three hundred to four hundred 

 fathoms. With a strong line-f- of this length, to the bottom of which 

 is tied a stone (called the '■'' pendida'') of three or four pounds'* weight, 

 and having attached immediately above the stone, at intervals of eighteen 

 inches, from twelve to fifteen strong hooks, baited with pieces of Ca- 

 vallo (Mackerel) or Chicharro (Madeiran Horse-Mackerel), I have been 

 frequently assisting at their capture. Coming up from these enormous 

 depths, the fish becomes so distended with gas, expanding upon the 

 removal of the vast pressure below, that it rises to the surface, not indeed 

 entirely dead, but wholly powerless, and in a sort of rigid cataleptic 

 spasm : the stomach is usually inverted, and protruded into the mouth ; 

 and the eyes in general are forced so completely from their sockets, stick- 

 ing out often like two horns, that " eyes like a Cherne " is a common 

 phrase amongst the fishermen for a prominent-eyed person. Sometimes, 

 from the same cause, it rises faster as it approaches the surface than the 

 line can be hauled in ; shooting quite out of the water at some distance 

 from the boat upon its first emergence, like a cork or bladder, from the 

 lightness caused by its great distension. The usual size of these was 

 from two and a half to three and a half feet long, weigliing from twenty- 

 five to forty or fifty pounds. Fishes from fifty to a hundred pounds in 



* The fishermen affirm that its heart beats two days after capture. I have seen it beating six 

 or eight hours after apparent death. 



+ Each boat is generally furnished with two such lines, each worked by a single fisherman, wlio 

 is, however, assisted by others in the labour of hauling in the line, wjiich takes from twenty to thirty 

 minutes. 



