454 MODERN SEA FISHING 



WRASSE or GREEN STREAKED WRASSE. It has various local 

 names, such as in Scotland ballan wrasse, sea-swine, and 

 bergle. In Yorkshire it is variously called ancient wife, old ewe, 

 servellan wrasse, and sweet-lips while the Welsh term it givrach 

 or old woman. Old wife, it will be remembered, is a name also 

 given to the black bream. Wrasse are rock fish, and if of any 

 size are commonly found in fairly deep water. In shape they 

 are not unlike the tench. Their colouring is as various as it is 

 beautiful. The background may be brown, green, or blue. On 

 the yellowish fins are orange rings but I find myself quite 

 unable to describe the markings and colourings of these most 

 lovely fish. 



Most people who care to taste wrasse will, I think, take my 

 view as to their worthlessness, for they are watery and insipid. 

 But, according to McCalla, they are esteemed in Galway, and 

 Lowe describes them as being much prized in the Orkneys, 

 where they are eaten fresh. In waters nearer home the chief 

 use of the wrasse is to be cut up and placed as bait in lobster 

 and crab pots. In some places they are made into soup, which 

 has been described to me as the nastiest soup of all soups. 

 At Portland a compound is made occasionally, known as 

 Conner pie Conner being one of the many local names given 

 to wrasse. 



A perhaps still more beautiful wrasse is the Labrus mixtus, 

 which glories in yellow, blue, orange, purple, and black. It 

 differs from the Ballan wrasse in not having the perch-like bars 

 of colour on its sides. In Cornwall it is termed the CUCKOO 

 FISH, and I heard an Isle of Wight fisherman describe one I 

 had caught as a Jerusalem cuckoo. Blue-striped wrasse, cook- 

 conner, livery servant, and livery fish are local names. The 

 female is peculiar in having three dark blotches on its back 

 near the tail, so is sometimes called the three-spotted wrasse, 

 and also red wrasse and flesh-coloured wrasse. It is a common 



