All these are the choicest prices of the angler, and they have few rivals in any part of the world. Other most excellent food-fishes are the eel (Anguilla species), the sole of Europe (Solea soka), the pike (Esox lucius), the muskallonge (Esox masquinongy), the sardine (Sardinella pilchardus), the atka-fish (Pleurogrammus mouopterygius) of Bering Sea, the pescado blanco (Chirostoma estor and other species) of Lake Chapala in Mexico, the Hawaiian mullet (Mugil cephalus), the Cali fornia pesce rey (Atherinopsis californiensis), the Channel catfish (lctalurus furcatus), the turbot (Psetta maxima), the barracuda (Sphy raw), and the young of various sardines and herring known as whitebait. Of large fishes, probably the swordfish (Xiphias gladius), the halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus), and the king-salmon or quinnat (Oncorhynchus tsch antscha) may be placed first. Those who feed on raw fish prefer, in general, the large parrot-fishes (as Callyodon jordani) in Hawaii, or else the young of mullet and similar species.
In general, the economical value of any spe cies depends not on its toothsomeness, but on its abundance and the ease with which it may be caught and preserved.
It is said that more individuals of the her ring (Clupea harengus in the Atlantic; Clupea Pallasii in the Pacific) exist than of any other species. The herring is a good food-fish, and wherever it runs it is freely caught. According to Bjornson, wherever the schools of herring touch the coast of Norway, there a village springs up, and this is true in Scotland, New foundland, and from Killisnoo in Alaska to Otaru in Japan and to Strielok in Siberia. Goode estimates the herring product of the North Atlantic at 1,500,000,000 pounds annually. In 1%1, Professor Huxley used these words : It is said that 2.300.000.000, or thereabouts, of herrings are every year taken out of the North Sea and the Atlantic. Suppose we assume the number to be 3,000,000.000 so as to be quite safe. It is a large number, undoubtedly, but what does it come to? Not more than that of the herrings which may be contained in one shoal. if it covers half a dozen square miles. and shoals of much larger size are on record. It is safe to say that scattered through the North Sea and the Atlantic, at one and the same time, there must be mores of shoals, any one of which would go a long way toward supplying the whole of man's consumption of her. rings.
The codfish (Gadus callarias in the Atlan tic; Gadus macrocephalus in the Pacific) like wise swarms in all the northern seas, takes the hook readily, and is better food when salted and dried than it is when fresh.
Next in economic importance probably stands the mackerel of the Atlantic (Scomber scombrus), a rich oily fish which bears salting better than most.
Scarcely less important is the great king salmon or quinnat (Oncorhynchus tschawy tscha) and the blueback salmon or red salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka). The canned product of the latter in Alaska alone amounts to nearly $5,000,000 annually.
The salmon of the Atlantic (Salmo solar), the various species of sturgeon (Acipenser), the sardines (Sardinella), the halibut (Hippo glossus), are also food-fishes of great import ance.
In the tropics no one species is represented by the enormous numbers of individuals, as is the case in colder regions. On the other hand, the number of species regarded as food-fishes is much greater in any given part. In Havana about 350 different species are sold as food in the markets, and an equal number are found in Honolulu. Upwards of 600 different species appear in the markets of Japan. In England, on the contrary, about 50 species make up the list of fishes commonly used as food. Yet the number of individual fishes is probably not much greater about Japan or Hawaii than on a similar stretch of British coast.
Catching general, fishes are caught in four ways, by baited hooks, by spears, by traps and by nets. Special local methods, such as the use of the tamed cormorant, in the catching of the ayu, by the Japanese fishers at Gifu, may be set aside for the moment, and all general methods of fishing come under one of these four classes.
Of these methods, the hook, the spear, the seine, the beam-trawl, the gill-net, the purse net, the sweep-net, the trap, and the weir are most important. The use of the hook is again extremely varied. Sometimes for codfish long sunken lines, each baited with many hooks, are used. For pelagic fish a baited hook is drawn swiftly over the surface, with a "spoon° at tached which looks like a living fish. In the rivers the line is attached to a pole, and when fish are caught for pleasure or for the joy of being in the woods, recreation rises to the dig nity of angling, Angling may be accomplished with a hook baited with an earthworm, a grass hopper or the larva of some insect. The angler of to-day, however, prefers the artificial fly, as being more workmanlike and also more effective than bait-fishing.