264 FISHES. 



threatens he hides himself beneath the rocks in the sea, or darts rapidly 

 down into the depths of the Avater : his life is a monotonous stillness ; 

 his voracity alone constitutes the business of his life, and it is only by 

 that that he can be led to direct his motions through the medium of 

 signs from without. Nevertheless, these beings to which enjoyments 

 have been so scantily supplied, are decorated by nature with every sort 

 of beauty : variety in their forms, elegance in their proportions, diver- 

 sity and gaiety in their colours, — nothing, in fact, is wanted in them 

 to "fix the attention; and it really would seem that nature had this 

 end in view in her design. The splendour of the metallic bodies and 

 of all the precious stones, with which they shine forth, the colours of the 

 iris which they exhibit, are reflected in bands or spots, in undulating 

 or angular lines, but invariably regular and syrimetrical, the shades 

 wonderfully adjusted and contrasted. Wherefore should all these 

 endowments be distributed to creatures like the fishes which scarcely 

 ever see each other, save only in those deptlis where the light of the 

 sun hardly penetrates, and even when they do see each other what soit 

 of pleasurable sensation can be excited amongst them by these cha- 

 racters ? 



Hence it is that jnan has always directed his attention to the 

 animals of this class. The abundance of aliment of which they are 

 the source leads him to attack them as the first object of his pursuit ; 

 and many Ichthyophagi belong to a race less inferior in the scale 

 of civilization than even the pastoral tribes, and great numbers of fami- 

 lies derive the whole of their subsistence from fishing. Islanders 

 and residents on coasts look after and take notice of the numerous 

 species which frequent their rocks, and a more intrepid race actually 

 navigates to the greatest distance, to attack, in the middle of the ocean, 

 the huge phalanxes of fishes travelling on their course. But in 

 thus supplying the first necessities of man, the fishes are not the less 

 available to the opulent, as means of luxury the most refined. Rome, 

 the gulf into which were once poured the riches of the world, devoted 

 to this branch of expenditure sums such as now we can scarcely 

 believe. Ponds of immense size were maintained both for sea and 

 fresh M'ater fishes; they were actually brouglit alive on the table, to 

 afford amusement by the variations of colovir which they experienced 

 in dying ;* and it would appear that such were the pains and perse- 



* " MuUum cxpiranicm versicolon quadam et numerosa varielaie spcctari, pru- 

 reres (julee narrant, rubeniium squuinurum innUipUci iiiulafione puUescentem, xdique si 

 vitro spedettir iuch'stis." (Plin., I. IX, c. 17. Voyez aussi Sen^que, Quest nat., 



1. Ill, C. 18. 



Et 



liiyeuioaa yulu e»<, sicnlo ncurus cequort inersus 



Ad mensatn vivus perducitur 



(Petron. ('arm. be bell civ. v. 33.) 

 Tniiislutiuii. — "The belly-gods of foinicr times tell us that the mullet iu dying, 

 underwent a very great variety of changes of colour ; becoming gradually pale by very 

 rapid changes of the red colour of the scales, precisely as if it were enclosed in glass." 

 (Pliny 1. IX, c. 17.) See also Seneca, Quest. Nat. 1. Ill, c. IS. 

 And, 



" Gluttony is ingenious, for the scarus fish •which is merged in the Sicilian sea, 

 .$, brought alive to table." (Petronius, carm. de bello civil, v. 33. 



