ACANTHOPTERYGII. 339 



parations sold too at a higher price. They were known in 

 general under the name of saltamentum Sardicum. Their 

 savoury quality was attributed to the quantity of acorns 

 which fell from a small species of oak very common on these 

 coasts, and the people were led to believe that it was at the 

 bottom of the sea itself that the oaks grew which produced 

 these acorns, but which in all probability are nothing but 

 fucus. 



The tunnies which removed farther towards the straits 

 of Gibraltar, became more and more thin, because they no 

 longer found this sort of aliment. 



The middle of the Mediterranean, in the spot where it 

 grows narrow, between Italy and Africa, also yielded very 

 abundant fisheries of these tunnies. 



^Elian speaks of those which were carried on by the Gauls, 

 and the inhabitants of Marseilles, with strong hooks of iron, 

 and of the great apparatus of nets employed by the Italians 

 and Sicilians. 



Archestratus, in Athenseus, extols the tunnies of the 

 mouth of the Metaurus in the Adriatic, and those of the 

 coasts of Laconia. 



Strabo, in his Geography, carefully marks the places where 

 men were stationed to give notice of the arrival of these fish, 

 just in the very same manner as is done in our own times. 

 These stations were Papulonium, or Piombino, Porte-Ercole 

 on the coast of Etruria, whither they were attracted by the 

 shell-fish, and the Cape of Amnion, on the coast of Africa. 

 These kinds of watching places were called tunny -scopes, 



{QvvVOGKOTTUOv). 



The fishery was carried on very nearly in the same way as 

 in our days. The description given us by /Elian of that which 

 took place along the coasts of the Euxine, entirely resembles 

 what is reported by Duhamel of the tunny fishery as prac- 

 tised at Collioure. 



z 2 



