FISHES. 633 
will sometimes produce as many as 16,000 tunnies, each from twenty 
to twenty-five pounds weight. 
When the park, in place of being established for a single fishery, 
is a permanent construction in the sea, it is called, in Provence, a 
“madrague.” The madragueis a vast enclosure. The netting which 
forms the partitions of its chambers are sustained by buoys of cork 
on the surface, and kept down by heavy stones and other weights on 
the lower edge, and maintained in this position by cords, one ex- 
tremity of which is attached to the net, and the other is moored to 
ananchor. The madrague is intended to arrest the shoals of tunnies 
at the moment when they abandon the shore in order to return to 
the open sea. For this purpose a long alley or run is established 
between the sea-shore and the park or madrague. The tunnies follow 
this alley, and, after passing from chamber to chamber, betake them- 
selves at last to the body of the park. 
In order to force them into the madrague they are pressed towards 
the shore by means of a long net, which is extended in their rear 
attached to two boats, each of which sustains one of the upper 
angles of the net. When the fishes come to the last compartment, 
the fishermen raise a horizontal net, which makes a sort of false bottom 
to this compartment, by which the fishes are gradually raised to the 
surface of the water. This operation occupies the whole night. 
In the morning the tunnies are collected in a very narrow space, 
and at varying distances from the shore ; and now the carnage com- 
mences. The unhappy creatures are struck with long poles, boat- 
hooks, and other weapons. The tunny-fishing presents a very sad 
spectacle at this its last stage; fine large fish perish under the blows 
of a multitude of fishermen, who pursue-their bloody task with most 
dramatic effect. The sight of the poor creatures, some of them 
wounded and half dead, trying in vain to struggle with their ferocious 
assailants, is very painful to see. The sea, red with blood, long 
preserves traces of this frightful carnage, of which an illustration is 
attempted in PLATE XXIX. 
The flesh of the tunny is much esteemed, being firm and whole- 
some. It is called the salmon of Provence. “For our part,” says 
M. Figuier, “‘ we put it farabove the salmon. Nothing is comparable 
to the fresh tunny thrown into a hot frying pan, and sprinkled with 
vinegar and salt. When properly cooked, nothing can be more firm 
or savoury. In short, nothing of the kind can rival, or even be com- 
pared, with the tunny, as we find it at Marseilles and Cette.” 
The tunny is greatly celebrated among the Greeks and other in- 
habitants on the shores of the Mediterranean, of the Propontus, and 
