But it is for her abundant supply and large variety of both river and salt water fish that Galicia is especially famed. I have already described my visit to the fishermen’s wharf at Coruña, and the way in which ice is specially manufactured to preserve the fish that has to travel to Madrid and other distant towns. The most typical fish of Galicia is the sardine. More than a hundred years ago, on the occasion of the erection of a lighthouse on the coast for the benefit of fishermen, Señor Joseph Cornide[222] published a monograph on the sardine; in 1788 he published a larger work, embracing an account of all the fish caught on the coast of Galicia. The reader must bear in mind that Galicia is bounded on two sides by the sea, and that not only is her coast-line very extensive in proportion to her size, but there are also her wide lochs or rias which run to a considerable distance inland, and meet the rivers that flow down from the mountain outposts of the Pyrenees. The chief capes to north and west are Cape Finisterre and Cape Ortegal.
The sardine, erroneously termed _arengus minor_ (smaller herring), is, as we have seen, the chief source of wealth to the fishermen. Shoals of this fish enter the rias every year from the month of July onward; it resembles more closely the North Sea herring than any other fish, but it is quite distinct. Linnæus classed it amongst the mackerel family. The weeds and other substances that the rivers wash down from the mountains into the rias are just the food that sardines require, and as the mouths of the ria are very wide, and at the same time sheltered from the Atlantic winds, they prove a favourable shelter for these little fish, who, unable to thrive where there is wind and severe cold, come southwards every year in the months of December and January; in stormy weather they leave the surface and cling to the bottom for protection. The Gallegans use cod’s roe as a bait with which to attract them.
There are two sizes of sardines caught on this coast; the smaller ones look very like anchovies, and are called _parrochas_ by the Gallegan fishermen, but if the two are carefully compared it will be found that the anchovy is narrower and has a more pointed head than the sardine; it is covered, moreover, with irregular black spots, and the head, if eaten, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. The anchovy is frequently eaten raw, and it is also preserved in oil like the sardine.