fish. 669 



and the comic writers of antiquity frequently allude to a fish- 

 salter named Cherephile, who became an Athenian citizen, 

 and whose son spent in extravagance the property his father 

 had accumulated. Several persons were lashed by the satirists 

 merely because they were inordinately fond of fish : among 

 these we find the names of poets, orators, and particularly 

 the painter Androcides of Cyzicus, who executed with great 

 care the portraits of the species found in the straits of Scylla, 

 and became in this manner the precursor of the great mono- 

 graphers of our times. 



If a proof were wanted of the variety of species which the 

 Greeks had learned to distinguish, we should find it in the 

 fact that more than four hundred different names of fish 

 exist in their language, which can be said of no other 

 tongue. Buffon may justly ask, " such an abundance of names, 

 such an exuberance of clear and definite expressions, do they 

 not proclaim a corresponding multitude of ideas and obser- 

 vations ? And may we not allow the inference, that a nation 

 which had named so many objects more than ourselves, was 

 also acquainted with so many more objects ?" Many of these 

 names remain however totally undetermined, and others are 

 of doubtful application; and it is clear that numerous 

 synonyms occur, created by the original difference in the 

 language of Greece, and by the posterior importation of 

 foreign names. Still the fact proves the justice of the remark, 

 that Greece, and Athens were in particular, filled with pisca- 

 tory citizens : 



" We know that town is but with fishers fraught, 

 Where Theseus govern'd, and where Plato taught." 



Sandys. 



The Greeks transmitted a great part of their nomenclature of 

 fish to the Romans, and probably the principal directors of 



