Fishes. 2659 



of fat, and even with an earthy and unpleasant taste ; while that of 

 the other is red, firm, full of fat, and of a flavour which is rich and 

 highly agreeable. On examining, moreover, a large take of salmon, 

 when newly hauled on shore, in the most favourable circumstances 

 and at the most likely period, it will be impossible to say beforehand 

 what particular specimens will be best fitted for the table and will 

 display the peculiar excellencies of the fish in the highest degree. 

 There are no doubt certain established marks which are found to cha- 

 racterize those salmon which have proved, on trial, to be of the very 

 finest quality : these are a comparatively small head, a hog back, and 

 a great depth from the highest point on the back to the corresponding 

 point of the belly : it is, also, considered as an excellent sign when 

 the skin, on being indented by the finger, returns with a spring, as it 

 were, to its previous form and appearance : and when an experienced 

 fisherman is requested to single out what he thinks likely to prove a 

 fish of superior quality, it is principally by these marks that he would 

 appear to be guided. Although however it but seldom, or rather 

 never, happens that a fish turns out to be a good one which is desti- 

 tute of these marks, it does not always follow that every fish which 

 possesses them will on that account be of first, or even of second rate 

 character. I have repeatedly seen that a specimen, which had been 

 picked out with the greatest care from a large and newly-caught heap, 

 and which had the above-mentioned marks developed to the greatest 

 extent, was found, nevertheless, to be after all but of very inferior ex- 

 cellence, although served up at table only a short hour after it had 

 been swimming in the sea. It is not indeed until the cooked salmon 

 makes its appearance that the most knowing can tell whether or not 

 it is of the finest quality : no sooner, however, does he look upon it 

 in that condition, than a judge will be able, before he tastes it, to 

 pronounce unhesitatingly as to its merits. When of the highest ex- 

 cellence, the flesh is of a bright and beautiful pink, its texture is 

 without any appearance of seams, and is close and firm even to the 

 eye ; and, when it is separated, it parts — not without resistance — into 

 large and compact flakes or layers, with pieces of fat as white as milk 

 lying thickly between them. Of all such salmon, the taste and flavour 

 are very perceptibly different from those of specimens where the flesh, 

 when boiled, is of a palish red, — where its surface is, as it were, 

 seamed coarsely over, — where it falls, almost of itself, into thinnish 

 flakes, — and where between these there is no white fat, but an oily 

 and strongly tasted substance. And the only way in which, as I con- 

 ceive, a distinction so striking can be accounted for between fish 



