THE aUENARD GROUP. 171 



through the water; while Rondolet refers it to the dusky 

 and lighter bands with which in alternate series the 

 scisena's sides are, as it were, shaded. The etymological 

 a-Kia, or cloud, which thus ohscures the name, does not 

 extend to its possessor, the fish never having been under 

 a cloud, but, on the contrary, always taking a conspicuous 

 place amongst the ' pesci nobUi ' of the Mediterranean, 

 compared with most of which it will be fotmd to deserve 

 its persistent reputation and present pre-eminence. From 

 the scisena's size, personable appearance, and from the 

 delicate whiteness of its flakes at tablCj it has long been 

 honoured by the inhabitants of Languedoc with the title' 

 of Peis-E.e, i. e. Pesce Reale ; but whence, unless in 

 open derision of fasting, the French have imposed the 

 more common name of ' la maigre,' we do not venture 

 a conjecture. A remarkable physiological trait of these 

 scisenas, is the purring noise they make under water, 

 which is so loud as to be distinctly audible many, some 

 say more than twenty, fathoms deep, and to betray their 

 latitat to the fishermen. The large ear-stones, which 

 more or less characterize all the members of the present 

 group, were formerly recommended by the faculty as an 

 infallible remedy in colic ; a hint improved upon by the 

 French jewellers, who in Belongs day enclosed them in 

 lockets (the mere wearing of which was supposed a com- 

 plete antidote against this painfiil aficction), and thus se- 

 cured — with more detriment, it may be presumed, to the 

 doctors than to the disease — a flourishing and lucrative 

 business. 



The preposterous preference shown by the ancient 

 Greeks for congers' heads, and the large sums they would 

 occasionally fetch in the markets, have been noticed al- 

 ready. The Romans did not care for congers, but of 

 those fish to which they were addicted, the head — ^like 

 the ' hure au sanglier ' in France — was always considered 

 the bonne bouche, and part to be selected. It was so 



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