THE TUNNY. 221 



swelling as it were with living waves, not seldom overflows 

 its banks and casts multitudes ashore. Steller affirms that, 

 in that almost uninhabited peninsula, the bears and dogs and 

 other animals catch more of these fishes with their mouths 

 and feet than man in other countries with all his cunning 

 devices of net and angle. 



The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed 

 by the phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers 

 for the British market. A small river, bearing the significant 

 name of Laxaa or Salmon river, has been rented for the trifling 

 sum of lOOi. a year by an English company which sends every 

 spring its agents to the spot, well provided with the best fishing 

 apparatus. The captured fish are immediately boiled and her- 

 metically packed in tin boxes, so that they can be eaten in 

 London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other 

 valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us a similar 

 tribute ; and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the rail- 

 way, extends her empire, rivers more and more distant are made 

 to supply the deficiencies of our native streams. More than 

 150,000 salmon are annually caught in Aljaska — not a quarter 

 of a century ago a real "ultima Thule" — and after having been 

 well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are 

 chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg. 



Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia 

 and New Zealand ; but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved 

 for a very long time, they have been transported with perfect 

 success to those far-distant colonies. 



If neither the salmon, nor the common herring, nor the cod, 

 dwell in the Mediterranean, the fishermen of that sea rejoice 

 in the capture of the Tunny, the 

 chief of the mackerel or scomberoid ' 

 family. Its usual length is about two 

 feet, but it sometimes grows to eight or 

 ten ; and Pennant saw one killed in Tunny. 



1769, when he was at Inverary, that 



weighed 460 pounds. The flesh is as firm as that of the 

 sturgeon, but of a finer flavour. 



" In May and June," says Mr. Yarrell, " the adult fish rove 

 alongthe coast of the Mediterranean in large shoals and triangular 

 array. They are extremely timid, and easily induced to take a 



