336 SUPPLEMENT ON 



Five cubits for this part would give a length of at least twenty 

 or twenty-two feet for the entire fish. 



In Sardinia when it weighs less than a hundred pounds, 

 they give it the name of the scampirro, a diminutive derived 

 from scomber. One from a hundred to three hundred pounds 

 they consider as but a half tunny (mezzo-tonno). Some 

 weighing a thousand pounds are not rare. Cetti asserts that 

 they are taken sometimes of the weight of eighteen hundred 

 pounds, and he adds that the largest are always males, which, 

 according to his own remark, would be the reverse of what 

 is observed in most other fishes. 



The fishery of the tunny dates from the highest antiquity. 

 Enthidemus even attributes some verses to Hesiod in which 

 he describes the trade and exportation of it. But Athena3us, 

 who quotes them, proves at the same time that they must of 

 necessity have been the production of a much later poet. 



It was more especially at the two extremities of the Me- 

 diterranean, at the places where this sea contracts its channel, 

 and where the migratory fish are forced to come more closely 

 in contact with each other, that the largest tunny fisheries 

 took place. 



In the East the Black Sea presented these fish with an 

 abundant degree of aliment, in consequence of the number of 

 rivers which run into it. They repaired thither in crowds in 

 the spring time for the purpose of spawning, and Aristotle 

 even believed that they did not multiply elsewhere. They 

 remained there during the summer, and it was on their pas- 

 sage to the Bosphorus, that such rich captures were made 

 of them. According to the very detailed account of Strabo, 

 their reproduction took place in the Palus Moeotis. They 

 followed the coast of Asia Minor, and the first were taken at 

 Trebizond and Pharnacia; but they were then but small. 

 At Synope they had already attained a size large enough 

 for salting, and that town, built upon an isthmus, and ad- 



