One Of The Best Fish Of This Country, Is Called Le
Loup, About Two Or Three Pounds In Weight; White, Firm, And Well-Flavoured.
Another, no-way inferior to it, is the Moustel, about
the same size; of a dark-grey colour, and short, blunt snout;
growing thinner and flatter from the shoulders downwards, so as
to resemble a soal at the tail.
This cannot be the mustela of the
antients, which is supposed to be the sea lamprey. Here too are
found the vyvre, or, as we call it, weaver; remarkable for its
long, sharp spines, so dangerous to the fingers of the fishermen.
We have abundance of the saepia, or cuttle-fish, of which the
people in this country make a delicate ragout; as also of the
polype de mer, which is an ugly animal, with long feelers, like
tails, which they often wind about the legs of the fishermen.
They are stewed with onions, and eat something like cow-heel. The
market sometimes affords the ecrivisse de mer, which is a lobster
without claws, of a sweetish taste; and there are a few rock
oysters, very small and very rank. Sometimes the fishermen find
under water, pieces of a very hard cement, like plaister of
Paris, which contain a kind of muscle, called la datte, from its
resemblance to a date. These petrifactions are commonly of a
triangular form and may weigh about twelve or fifteen pounds each
and one of them may contain a dozen of these muscles which have
nothing extraordinary in the taste or flavour, though extremely
curious, as found alive and juicy, in the heart of a rock, almost
as hard as marble, without any visible communication with the air
or water.
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