OF ALL COUNTRIES. 19 



wrecks, as if we were thunnies or a draft of fish." What 

 a whirlwind of applause must have greeted that bold and 

 glowing picture, which combined in one line the popular 

 national pursuit and the most splendid victory ever achieved 

 since warfare began ! Aristotle mentions the thunnies, 

 saying that they belong to a gregarious and carnivorous 

 class, and deriving their Greek name of hamiae, or com- 

 panions, from their going always in shoals, a derivation 

 which may have been more justifiable than it would seem ; 

 and Archestratus gives a poetical receipt for dressing them, 

 which has been translated into Italian verse by Signor 

 Domenico Scina. According to Pliny, in whose mouth a 

 story never grows less, they weighed as much as fifteen 

 tons, the tail alone being nearly four feet in width. Fried 

 slices of them made a capital dish for the Athenian poor, 

 like fried plaice with our own population. "Who do you 

 match with me, I'd ask ? " says the Bobadil of Aristophanic 

 Comedy. " I'll just eat some hot thunny and drink a gallon 

 or so of wine, and then I'll blackguard you every general 

 in Pylos." In the Idylls of Theocritus, whose every line 

 breathes of pure air and summer skies, and compared with 

 whom the idylls of other writers are like plants in a con- 

 servatory, occurs more than one allusion to the habits of 

 fishermen, one eclogue in particular being especially assigned 

 to those characters. Ausonius, too, in his poem on the 

 Moselle, after describing the 



" High-crested towns wrought from the hanging rocks. 

 Hills green with Bacchus' leaf, and pleasant flow 

 Of Mosel's silent stream that flows beneath," 



goes on to speak of "the grey crowd" of fishes swimming 

 in the pleasant waters. Nor must we here pass over the 

 interesting work entitled * Geoponica,' drawn up, according 



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