38o FISH- VIVARIA— FIRST POACHING 



This letter confirms what had previously been only sur- 

 mised, viz. that the inhabitants of certain districts had enjoyed 

 the exclusive right of fishing in their home waters. " It has 

 already been inferred," King continues, " that the duty of 

 repairing the banks of rivers and canals, and of clearing the 

 waterways, fell upon the owners of property along the banks, 

 and it was no doubt as a compensation for this enforced 

 service (or corvee) that the fishing in these waters was preserved." 



Mesopotamia and Armenia did not lack in fish of unusual, 

 even fatal, properties. Thus of certain fishes near Babylon 

 /Elian tells us ^ on the authority of Theophrastus, when the 

 irrigation streams were without water, they remained in any 

 small hole which was moist or held a little water, and were able to 

 find a hving in the herbage which grew in the dry channels, etc. 

 Pliny (IX. 83) gives a somewhat similar story but a more detailed 

 description of these fish, which " have heads like sea-frogs, the 

 remaining parts like gudgeons, but the gills Hke other fish." 

 Emerging from their water holes, they travel on land for food, 

 moving along with their fins, aided by a rapid movement of 

 their tail. If pursued, they retreat to their holes and make a 

 stand. 



He notices too the stay-at-homeness of the fish in the 

 Tigris and of those in the lake Arethusa. Though the river 

 flows in and out of the lake, the denizens of the one are never 

 to be found in the other. We discern the reason for such 

 estranged relations in his previous sentence, " the waters of 

 the lake support all weighty substances and exhale nitrous 

 vapours." 2 Ktesias mentions a spring in Armenia, the fishes 

 of which are quite black and, if eaten, prove instantly fatal. ^ 



The only spring of sweet-smelling water " in toto orbe," 

 Chabura, hes in Mesopotamia. The reason (according to 

 legend) for its possessing this unique property was because 

 in it the Queen of Heaven, Juno, or presumably her Babylonian 

 counterpart, was wont to bathe.* But Pliny fails to indicate 

 whether the unique scent was an effort of Nature to supply 

 a bath meet for the Queen of Heaven, or was merely a 



1 N. H., V. 27. « N. H., VI. 31. 



* Ibxd., XXXI. 19. « N. H., XXXI. 22. 



