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248 on ledges, tier above tier, from the top of the house to within eight feet of the ground; a fire is then kindled, and fed with green wood, chiefly oak or beech, and maintained, with occasional intermissions, for about three weeks, or, if the fish are intended for exportation, a month; the fire is then extinguished, and the house allowed to cool, and in a few days the herrings are barrelled. "Bloaters" are prepared with much less salt, and therefore, though their flavour is milder and finer, they cannot be preserved good. Hence the supply of these is almost limited to the few weeks during which the fishery lasts.

We have here another Family of fishes eminent in their usefulness to man. Perhaps, indeed, if we consider the great number of edible species, the immense quantities in which some at least are procured, the excellence of their flesh both fresh and salt, and the facility with which they can be preserved for future consumption,—we may safely pronounce these the most valuable of all the finny tribes. There are about a hundred and ten species recognised, and of these fully one-third are European. Twenty-one species are enumerated as British, and of these the following eighteen contribute more or less extensively to supply the need of man:—the Cod, the Dorse, the Haddock, the Pout, the Poor, the Whiting, Couch's Whiting, the Coalfish, the Pollack, the Green Cod, the Hake, the Ling, the Burbot, three kinds of Rockling, the Torsk, and the Forked Beard:—a goodly list!