102 THE DOLPHIN— ICHTHYOPHAGI— THE TUNNY 



ladders still used in Austria and Italy (of which Keller gives 

 an illustration i) and the Turkish dalian of the Bosporus repre- 

 sent the modern scaffold. Oppian [hal, III. 630 ff.) and iEhan 

 {de nat. an., XV. 5) note the enormous hauls made by the fisher- 

 men when " the army " of the Tunnies set out on its migrations, 

 company by company. 



The nets used for the capture of Tunny by the Itahans 

 (at the present day) are fixed : made of thick cord, without 

 leads, and sometimes as much as 250 fathoms long, and 15 

 fathoms deep, thus recalling Oppian's "a Town of Nets." 2 

 Special regard has to be paid now as of old, in fixing their 

 position, to the course frequented by this eminently migratory 

 genus in its annual passage from the Atlantic to the Black 

 Sea and Sea of Azov, a distance of 2800 miles and back again. 

 The same route is always travelled by an ever living stream of 

 undiminished fulness, furnishing food to millions on the 

 Mediterranean. 



To the Phoenicians and to the Spaniards of old the Tunny 

 ranked high as a commercial asset. The Tyrian tunny was 

 specially prized ^ ; its salsamentum travelled far and wide. 

 Rhode (p. 38) points out, however, that this originally was 

 designed not as a delicacy, but as a preventive against scurvy 

 and other diseases attendant on the long voyages which the 

 far-flung commerce of the Phoenicians demanded. 



The older port, Sidon, got its name from its wealth of fish, 

 which in Phoenician was called Sidon,^ while Tyrus, one of the 

 earhest inhabitants of the younger port, traditionally invented 

 fishing tackle. 5 Many Spanish towns, as their coins attest, 

 notably those of Gades and Carteia, owed much of their 

 prosperity, if not their existence, to the salt or pickled fish 



1 O. Keller, Die Antike Tierwelt, vol. ii. 3S8, fig. 122. This work 

 (published at Leipzig a year before the War) unfortunately came into my hands 

 only when I had practically finished my book, and thus I have been precluded 

 from the more copious use of the Fische portion, which I should have desired 

 and which it would certainly have demanded. The seventy pages deahng 

 with fish form a compact treasure-house of ichthyic Hterature, but owing 

 perhaps to their scope lack piscatorial interest. 



^ Faber, Fisheries in the Adriatic, London, 1883. 



* According to Pollux, VL 63. 



* Justin, XVIII. 3. 2. 



* Cf. Ezekiel, XXVI. 5. 14. 



