296 ANIMAL FOOD RESOURCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



might not be sold, the arbitrary Royal document con- 

 tinues, 'The fishermen may do what they like with 

 congers that are so small that they may span them round 

 the middle with the fist, and they may reserve from the 

 large as well as the small as much as may be sufiicient 

 for their diet.' 



"But even previously to 1331 we get an inkling of the 

 magnitude and value, pecuniary and gustatory, of this 

 fishery, for Mr. Falle, another writer, says that one Otho 

 de Grandison, governor of these islands {tempore Edward 

 I. and II.) ' forced an impost upon congers salted for 

 transportation, and that at one penny only per conger 

 above 10 lbs. so salted and transported, he raised yearly 

 400 livres Tournois.' Until the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century, when the Newfoundland cod fishery 

 materially interfered with that of conger in Guernsey 

 and Jersey, it remained a source of much industry and 

 profit to their inhabitants ; at present, however, its ex- 

 port is nothing, and its consumption is limited to home 

 appetites. 



" The particular family, the Murenidw, or eel tribe, is 

 not a large one, the common fresh-water eel being its 

 type, but in many respects the conger diflfers from this 

 well-known slippery gentleman. His average length is 

 between three and four feet, his weight from 15 to 

 20 lbs., but we read of him growing much longer and 

 weighing very much heavier. Not unfrequently he 

 has measured six or eight feet, and has turned the 

 scale at 50 or 60 lbs. ; and now and again piscatorial 

 records note his attaining the huge size of ten feet, and 

 the heavy weight of 90 or 100 lbs. ; but, under those 

 gigantic conditions, the ' monstrum horrendum, informe, 

 ingens ' is an ' anak ' of his race, and fame deals with 

 him as such." * 



Congers are in some parts of England, especially where 

 the coasts are rocky, an important sea fish. At Fowey, 

 Mevagissey, and other parts of Cornwall, they have been 



* The Glote. 



