342 PEOSE HALIEXTTICS. 



In spite of the almost incessant Mckerings of rival 

 crews, certain bye-laws, framed for the good of each 

 ship, are rigidly adhered to hy all. Amongst these, it is 

 enacted that the man who catches fewest fish (a point 

 easily settled by counting the tongues)* shall clean the 

 deck and throw the heads overboard ; to avoid which 

 often cold, and, after a day's hard labour, always fatigu- 

 ing job, the tars are all eager to anticipate each other, 

 and to apply themselves as early as may be to the morn- 

 ing's work. As soon as a fish has been hooked and 

 hauled up, (sometimes in his greediness he is caught by 

 two fishermen at once, when he becomes the property of 

 the one who hooks him nearest the eye,) the captor re- 

 moves the tongue, and hands him to a second execu- 

 tioner, the ' decolleur,' who, cutting off the head, passes 

 him over to another functionary, who cuts the body 

 open, and ripping out the liver and intestines, puts him 

 into the hands of the ' trancheur,' to remove, by means 

 of an exceedingly sharp knife, the ribs and upper verte- 

 brae, and then, either to split him open from the head to 

 the caudal fin, and dress him a plat; or else from the 

 gills to the anal fin, a la rond;\ other hands having 

 next carefully sponged and dried him, he is handed 

 over to the salter, who rubs the body with one-sixth of 



ting's evidence, so as to Lang the villain from tte revelations 

 made by tlie document in his iniside, is no doubt familiar to many 

 of our readers. 



* These are separated, as soon as the fish is hauled up, and 

 kept with the sounds for salting, as a great delicacy : this practice 

 is, it appears, very ancient. 



t ' The fish of Egypt, as shown in the paintings on the walls 

 of the Theban palaces (vide Caillard's 'Egypt'), were divided 

 lengthwise by a knife, not unlike that now used for splitting the 

 cod-fish of Newfoundland ; their fish were cured with fossil salt, 

 procured from the African Desert, sea-salt being deemed by the 

 priests impure.' — Moule. 



