hedgehogs, squirrels, magpies, and jackdaws--small deer,
which the English experts did not affect, although I believe that the
hedgehog is frequently used to this day by country folk, both here and
abroad, and in India. It has white, rabbit-like flesh.

In an eleventh century vocabulary we meet with a tolerably rich
variety of fish, of which the consumption was relatively larger in
former times. The Saxons fished both with the basket and the net.
Among the fish here enumerated are the whale (which was largely used
for food), the dolphin, porpoise, crab, oyster, herring, cockle,
smelt, and eel. But in the supplement to Alfric's vocabulary, and in
another belonging to the same epoch, there are important additions
to this list: the salmon, the trout, the lobster, the bleak, with the
whelk and other shell-fish. But we do not notice the turbot, sole, and
many other varieties, which became familiar in the next generation
or so. The turbot and sole are indeed included in the "Treatise on
Utensils" of Neckam, as are likewise the lamprey (of which King John
is said to have been very fond), bleak, gudgeon, conger, plaice,
limpet, ray, and mackerel.

The fifteenth century, if I may judge from a vocabulary of that date
in Wright's collection, acquired a much larger choice of fish, and
some of the names approximate more nearly to those in modern use. We
meet with the sturgeon, the whiting, the roach, the miller's thumb,
the thomback, the codling, the perch, the gudgeon, the turbot, the
pike, the tench, and the haddock. It is worth noticing also that
a distinction was now drawn between the fisherman and the
fishmonger--the man who caught the fish and he who sold it--_piscator_
and _piscarius_; and in the vocabulary itself the leonine line is
cited: "Piscator prendit, quod piscarius bene vendit."

The whale was considerably brought into requisition for gastronomic
purposes. It was found on the royal table, as well as on that of the
Lord Mayor of London. The cook either roasted it, and served it up on
the spit, or boiled it and sent it in with peas; the tongue and the
tail were favourite parts.

The porpoise, however, was brought into the hall whole, and was carved
or _under-tranched_ by the officer in attendance. It was eaten with
mustard. The _piece de resistance_ at a banquet which Wolsey gave
to some of his official acquaintances in 1509, was a young porpoise,
which had cost eight shillings; it was on the same occasion that His