Koundjish 



They moved through the oceans with the same virulent self-assur- 

 ance as the Medici had shown in Renaissance Italy, a swarm of 

 them that tapered off into all kinds of isolation and pre-eminence 

 but never losing the essential Medici attributes. They were always 

 bloodthirsty, swift and important, so that they were forced to kill 

 whatever they did not dwarf. And yet there were other fish in the 

 sea and a few of them were even more valuable than any gadoid. 

 There were even a few roundfish other than gadoids and some of 

 them were fished commercially, though none were so numerous 

 or so highly prized as the hake, cod, haddock and whiting. 



SEA BREAM 



None, at any rate, could compete in Britain, but there was at 

 Iccist one roundfish preferred to most of the gadoids in many parts 

 of the Continent and Scandinavia. It was known variously as red- 

 fish, sea bream, Norwegian haddock and Sebastes marinus. To call 

 it a roundfish, though, was perhaps unrealistic, for it was one of 

 those disc-shaped fishes that swim vertically, a wobbly-looking 

 oval, like a platter leaned against a wall. The name redfish des- 

 cribed one aspect of it, for it was coloured a salmon pink. Not 

 even the flesh was white. People seemed to presume that this col- 

 ouring came of eating krill, the small crustaceans that swim far 

 out in the northern waters and form a main part of the diet of 

 whalebone whale. But it was impossible to be certain about what 



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