CHAPTEE TVt. 

 GABEANS AND PLEURONECTS. 



Qoj3, Gadus. 



TN no one family of the deep are the deficiencies of the 

 -■- ancientSj when brought into comparison with the 

 exuberant produce of our own markets, so strikingly 

 exemplified as in that of the cod and his next of kin. 

 With the cod proper (Gadus morrhua), the haddock (G. 

 segHfinus), dorse (G. merlangus), coal fish (G. carbona- 

 rius), pollack (G. poUachius), liag or turbot (G. lota), 

 they had no acquairitance whatever ; indeed, with the ex- 

 ception of the hake, which abounds in the Mediterranean, 

 and is an excellent fish wherever it swims, together with 

 a few delicate but pigmy codlings of its own,* almost aU 

 the better members of the family repudiating the tepid 

 waters of this sea,t scarcely ofier to the cooks and con- 

 noisseurs inhabiting its shores any iudividuals worthy a 

 sauce. But though ancient kitchens saw no specimens 

 of the elite of the Dogger Bank or Newfoundland, we 



* Two of the best-known of these are tlie Gr. minatns, which 

 is hawked about Naples (with another minute pisciculus of the 

 next family of fiats, the platessa nuda, with which it is taken in 

 large quantities under the well-known cry oi flcJii and suace), 

 and secondly masdeu di funnali (Phyois Mediterranea), which 

 looks not unlike a tench, and is, as its name imports, peculiar to 

 this sea. 



t It seems a siugular though it is a certain fact, that the luxu- 

 rious and warm waters of the Mediterranean, ia place of improv- 

 iug the fishy fibre, generally deteriorate it. 



