360 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



similar to that which necessity and custom has 

 developed in our attitude to cheese. Fresh cheese is 

 difficult to obtain. Habit has ended in our preferring 

 stale, decomposed cheese, which has developed a whole 

 series of flavours by the action on it of special bacteria 

 and moulds. The Roman soldiers of the first century 

 used a small salted fish (probably enough the anchovy) 

 to eat with their rations of bread, and such fish were 

 usually sold with bread. Probably the small " fishes " 

 which, together with a dozen loaves of bread, are stated 

 to have been used in the miraculous feeding of the 

 multitude by Christ, were salted anchovies. 



Dealers in Norwegian preserved fish not only falsely 

 call small sprats by the name " Anchovy " in order to sell 

 them, but they have recently prepared sprats in the 

 manner invented by French fish-curers for the prepara- 

 tion of the young Pilchard. The French name for young 

 Pilchard is " Sardines," and their Italian name even in Sir 

 Thomas Browne's time (1646) was " Sardinos." The 

 natural fine quality of the sardine and the skilful 

 " tinning " and flavouring of it by the French " curers " 

 of Concarneau in Brittany, have made it celebrated 

 throughout the world as a delicacy. The dealers in 

 Norway sprats — for the purpose of passing off on the 

 public a cheap, inferior kind of fish as something much 

 better — have recently stolen the French curers' name of 

 " Sardine," and coolly call their sprats " Sardines." The 

 sprats thus cured are soft and inferior in quality to the 

 true sardines, which are a less abundant and therefore 

 more costly species of fish. The fraudulent use in this 

 way of the name " Sardine " has been condemned by the 

 law courts in London, but the punishment for such fraud is 

 so small and the profit to the fraudulent dealers is so great 

 that our French friends have to submit to the iniquity. 



