THE COASTS OF SICILY. 249 



vanced in reference to this point by Lacepede and 

 Noel de la Moriniere, showed that these pretended 

 voyages had really no existence. Neither the tunny 

 nor the herring leaves its native country. The fact 

 is, however, that during winter, they seek shelter 

 from the cold at a depth to which no net can reach, 

 and when the sun has warmed the surface of the sea 

 and their season of reproduction has arrived, they 

 leave those abysses of the deep, and approach the 

 neighbouring shores, in order to deposit their eggs in 

 warm and shallow waters. 



At all events the tunny is undoubtedly a source 

 of wealth to the shores which it frequents. Either 

 fresh, salted, or smoked, it is an object of commerce, 

 which annually leads to the circulation of thousands 

 of thousands, and hence this fish has at all times 

 been the object of remorseless pursuit. Aristotle, 

 Pliny, Athenasus, and Oppian, have all transmitted 

 to us details of the different methods employed 

 by the ancients for its capture. Since then, every 

 age and every people seem to have furnished their 

 contingent of murderous inventions. The most 

 formidable means devised for capturing this unfor- 

 tunate fish is undoubtedly the madrague, which is 

 said to have been first employed by the inhabitants 

 of Martigues. This apparatus is not merely the 

 libouret of the Bayonnese or the grand couple of the 

 Basque fishermen, which are gigantic lines carrying 

 many hundred baited hooks, and which are worked 

 by a boat's crew of eight or ten men ; nor is it like the 

 courantille of the Provence fishermen, for this con- 

 trivance is merely a kind of seine from 1500 to 2000 



