83 REARING OF FISHES. _ 



mined route ; perhaps it would be more correct to believe that 

 when they disappear from the shore, they only retire to the great 

 depths of the sea. 



36 According to their habits, fishes are divided into marine 

 and fluviatile; there are some too, that alternately frequent salt 

 and fresh water, and the nature of this fluid seems to exercise 

 less influence upon them than is generally believed ; for some 

 essentially marine fishes t have been successfully reared in reser- 

 voirs of fresh water. 



The number of these animals is immense, and, as they furnish 

 man a wholesome and agreeable aliment, fishing is an fmportant 

 branch of industry among the most savage as well as among the 

 most civilized people. 



The Romans, who, after the loss of their liberty, displayed 

 such boundless luxiry in the table, did not confine themselves to 

 sending fishing vessels to the neighbouring seas, and to receiving 

 fishes from the lonians, inventors of the fish-car, which is a kind 

 of floating reservoir for keeping fish alive; but better to secure 

 the supply, the wealthiest citizens constructed immense fish-ponds, 

 filled with sea- water, in which they deposited the most delicate 

 fishes of Sioily, and even of Greece and Egypt. The first person 

 who built one of these great depots was Lucius Muraena, so 

 named, from the care he took of the Muraena or eels: he had 

 numerous imitators, and was even surpassed in his follies by 

 Lucullus, who cut through a mountain near Naples, to introduce 

 the sea-water into his ponds, and hollowed the rocks, which sur- 

 rounded them, into caverns, to afford his fishes a cool retreat 

 during the heat of summer. Other great personages of the ancient 

 capital of the world, prided themselves on possessing fishes so 

 tame as to suffer themselves to be touched ; we are assured, that 

 C.'rassus was more distressed upon losing one of his eels, than 

 upon the death of his three children; and history relates the 

 curious circumstance of a Roman lady going into mourning on 

 account of the death of a favourite Muraena : to give an idea ol 

 this strange taste of those degenerate Romans for fish of every 

 kind, we will mention a supper given to the Kmperor Otho by his 

 brother, at which there were served two thousand plates of rare 

 fishes. 



" Pliny relates, as a fact, that one Vedius Pollio, a particular 

 friend of Augustus, took delight in throwing his slaves in the 

 eel-vats, for the pleasure of seeing them torn to pieces and 



3G. What is the division of fishes according to their habits ? Does the 

 quality of tne water whether salt or fresh, exercise mlich influence upon 

 fishes ? 



