Cliap. 20.] FISHES. 387 



pears, which is of a sulphureous tint when in the water, but 

 when out of it resembles other fish in colour. The salt- water 

 preserves 47 of Spain are filled with these last fish, but the tun- 

 nies do not consort with them. 48 



CHAP. 20. FISHES WHICH ARE NEVER FOUND IN THE EUXINE ; 



THOSE WHICH ENTER IT AND RETURN. 



The Euxine, however, is never entered by any animal 49 that 

 is noxious to fish, with the exception of the sea-calf and the 

 small dolphin. On entering, the tunnies range along 50 the 

 shores to the right, and on departing, keep to those on the 

 left ; this is supposed to arise from the fact th at they have 

 better sight with the right eye, their powers of vision with 

 either being naturally very limited. In the channel of the 

 Thracian Bosporus, by which the Propontis is connected with 

 the Euxine, at the narrowest part of the Straits which separate 



find that it was a very common fish at Rome, of small size, and was in little 

 repute. It was wrapped in paper when exposed for sale, and bad poets 

 were threatened with the mackerel, as they are at the present day with the 

 grocer or butterman ; or, as in the time of the Spectator, with the trunk- 

 maker. Thus Persius says, Sat. i, 1. 43. " and to leave writings worthy 

 to be preserved in cedar, and verses that dread neither mackerel nor 

 frankincense." Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 2, enumerates this fish 

 among those that are gregarious, and places it in company with the tunny 

 and the pelarnis, but states that it is inferior in strength, B. viii. c. 2. 

 Cuvier says, that the mackerel still has names in different parts that are 

 derived from the word " scomber," they being called " sgombri" at Con- 

 stantinople, scombri at Venice, and scurmu, scrumiu, and scumbirro in 

 Sicily. 



47 Cetarias. These "cetariae," or "cetaria," Papias says, were pieces of 

 standing salt water, in the vicinity of the sea-shore, in which tunnies and 

 other large fish were kept, and adjoining to which were the salting-houses. 

 In the middle ages these preserves were called " tunnariae," or " tanneries." 



48 As in the Euxine. Tunnies were caught on the Spanish coasts, as we 

 learn from Athenaaus, who, as quoted above, mentions the fisheries off 

 Gades, for the orcynus, or large tunny. See N. 37, p. 385. 



49 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 16, from whom Pliny has here 

 borrowed, makes a somewhat dissimilar statement. He says that "no 

 noxious animal enters the Euxine, except the phocena [or porpoise], and the 

 dolphin and little dolphin." Hardouin remarks, however, that Pliny is 

 right in his statement that seals are to be found in the Euxine, and that 

 Rondelet, B. xvi. c. 9, for that reason has suggested that the reading ought 

 to be altered in Aristotle, and not in Pliny. 



50 Aristotle, B. viii. c. 6. Plutarch on the Instinct of Animals, and 

 -ZElian, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 42, say the same. 



o c 2 



