426 MODERN SEA FISHING 



fisheries. As a rule they swim in vast shoals, but will suddenly 

 and without apparent reason leave grounds which have been 

 noted for them for many years. Doubtless the explanation is 

 that the food supply has become exhausted. For instance, up 

 to the year 1870 haddock were very plentiful off Mevagissey, 

 in Cornwall, large ones up to twelve pounds in weight sometimes 

 being caught. In that year they left those waters, and are now 

 considered a rare fish. 



There is not much doubt that the trawlers have injured the 

 haddock fisheries in many places. According to Pennant, who 

 wrote in 1776, haddock were then so plentiful 

 within a mile of Scarborough Harbour that 

 three men using long lines could often load 

 their cobble with a ton of fish twice a day. 

 But the trawls have changed all that. Trawled 

 haddock, by the way, are mostly cured, being 

 a good deal knocked about. Fish caught by 

 hook and line are. infinitely the best for the 

 table ; but here I would ask, why in the 

 HOOK FOR name of goodness do English people almost 

 invariably plain boil haddocks and serve them 

 with egg sauce? If there is any sea fish 

 more than another that requires good cooking, it is the one 

 which, according to the legend, St. Peter drew out from the 

 Lake of Genesareth to obtain the tribute money, leaving the 

 mark of his finger and thumb on its shoulders. Parentheti- 

 cally, the same story is told of the John Dory, which has some 

 peculiar markings ; and, also parenthetically, neither of these 

 fish inhabit the lake. 



But, to return to culinary matters, a well-fed haddock 

 freshly caught out of the sea and filleted is by no means bad 

 eating. It may be prepared a la maitre d'hotel, or egged and 

 bread-crumbed and fried in butter. French cooks, I believe, 



