OXYRHYNCUS— CARV— FAST DAYS 199 



The story of how the Lupus comes to his death by the 

 Prawn can be read in Oppian ' and in ^EUan.^ The fish, ever 

 voracious, takes the prawns into his mouth by the thousand '. 

 these, unable to resist or retreat, jump about and puncture his 

 throat and jaws so seriously that he soon dies of poison and 

 suffocation. 



Pliny (IX. 17), it has been claimed, under the word Esox 

 intends our Esox lucius ; but Cuvier maintains, and rightly, 

 that his Esox signifies some very large fish, perhaps a Tunny. 



Sulpicius Severus, a presbyter who lived in Aquitania 

 {c. 365-425 A.D.) and penned an enthusiastic Life of S. Martin 

 of Toiir,^ writes : "ad primum j actum reti permodico immanem 

 Esocem extraxit." It is not for me to discuss or decry this 

 amazing statement of a very small net holding this monstrous 

 Esox. But as the growth of a Pike under the most favour- 

 able circumstances is probably not more than 2 lbs. a year 

 for twelve years when usually it lessens materially, I do suggest 

 that the adjective immanem is hardly applicable (unless St. 

 Martin's biographer, perhaps also a fisherman, has lapsed 

 unconsciously into a " fish story ") to a fish of about 20 or 30 

 lbs., and so would seem to confirm Cuvier.* 



Pike, Carp, and Grayhng were not apparently indigenous 

 in England. They were introduced from the Continent at 

 some undetermined date by one of the earUer religious orders 

 for the better keeping of Fast Days, which as enjoined by the 

 Church, even in Queen Elizabeth's time, amounted to no 

 less than 145 in number.^ 



1 op. cit. II. 127 ff. 



2 op. cit. I. 30. 



3 De Viriute B. Martini, III. 13. 



* The biggest Pike ever caught in the United Kingdom seems to be the 

 72-pounder mentioned by Colonel Thornton in his " Sporting Tour." Walton's 

 ring-decorated fish (see Gesner), three hundred years or so old, was no doubt 

 heavier, if it were genuine. At anv rate a Pike of 40-50 lbs. is very exceptional. 



* The value of the herring {C'lupea harengus) was unknown to_ the Greeks 

 and Romans, and so remained generally till the Middle Ages. " Ignorance, 

 presumably of the real nature of the Cetaceans betrayed our forefathers into 

 breaking Lent, for under the impression that the whale, porpoise, and seal 

 were fish, they ate them on fast days. High prices, moreover, were paid for 

 such meats, and porpoise pudding was a dish of State as late as the sixteenth 

 century" (P. Robinson, Fisheries Exhibition Literature, Ft. III. p. 42). Soma 

 laxity may, I think, be pardoned, for the very name " porpoise " (in Guernsey 

 pourpeis)-—dehved apparently from porc-peis (porcum+piscem) — implies that 

 the creature was regarded as a " pig-fish." 



