CHAPTER III. 



ITALIAN, SCOTTISH, AND FEENCH FISHERIES. 



Comaochio — The Ait of Breeding Eels — A well-designed Eel Farm — 

 Profits of Eel breeding in the 16th century — Progress of Fishing in 

 Scotland — ^A Scottish Buss — Newfoundland Fisheries — The Greenland 

 Whale Fishing — Specialty of different Fishing Towns— The General 

 Sea Fisheries of France — French Fish Commerce — French Sea Fisheries 

 — The Basin of Arcaohon — French Sardine Fishery — Sardine Curing — 

 Want of Statistics of the British Fisheries. 



Long before the organisation of the Dutch fisheries there 

 existed a quaint colony of Italian fisher people on the borders 

 of a more poetic water than the Zuyder Zee. I allude to the 

 eel-breeders of Comacchio on the Adriatic. This particular 

 fishing industry is of very considerable antiquity, as we have 

 well-authenticated statistics of its produce, extending over three 

 centuries. The lagoons of Comacchio aflEbrd a curious example 

 of what may be done by design and labour. This place was at 

 one time a great unproductive swamp, about one hundred and 

 forty miles in circumference, accessible to the waves of the 

 sea, where eels, leeches, and other inhabitants of such watery 

 regions, sported about unmolested by the hand of man ; and its 

 inhabitants — the descendants of those who first ■ populated its 

 various islands — isolated from the surrounding civilisation, and 

 devoid of ambition, have long been contented with their obscure 

 lot, and have even remain.ed to this day without establishing 

 any direct commimication with surrounding coimtries. 



The precise date at which the great lagoon of Comacchio 

 was formed into a fish-pond is not known, but so early as the 

 year 1229 the inhabitants of the place — a community of fishers 

 as quaint, superstitious, and peculiar as those of Buckie on the 

 Moray Firth, or any other ancient Scottish fishing port — pro- 

 claimed Prince Azzo d'Este Lord of Comacchio ; and from the 

 time of this appointment the place grew in prosperity, and its 

 fisheries began to assume an organisation and design which had 

 not before been their charaoteristic. The waters of the lagoon 



