8 BRITISH FISH AND FISHERIES. 



felt, for fish formed an important part of the 

 diet of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt. 

 Among their paintings, not only fish-ponds in 

 gardens are depicted, with the fish swimming 

 about, but also representations of fishermen, 

 some employed in using nets,* others, lines and 

 hooks. Spears, as pictorial representations 

 show, were also employed, and to these weapons 

 we find an allusion in the book of Job, xli. 7. 

 The mosaic pavement of Praeneste exhibits also 

 a mode of taking fish in weirs, decoys, or toils, 

 made of hurdles of reeds, winding in various 

 directions, so as to entrap the fish, which are 

 taken out by means of baskets or nets ; see also 

 Isaiah xix. 8-10. 



Fish, according to Herodotus, were eaten by 

 the Egyptians like ducks and quails, both salted 

 or pickled, and also dried in the sun, without 

 any other preparation. From some motive or 

 other, however, the priests were prohibited 

 from the use of fish as food, and in the cata- 

 combs of Abousir, according to Abdallatif, (an 

 Arabian writer of the twelfth century,) among 

 the remains of other animals those of small fish 

 were found, f 



* See the use made by the inhabitants of the low marshes of 

 Egypt of nets, namely, to take fish by day, to serve as mosquito 

 curtains at night. Heredotus ; Euterpe. 



t See De Sacey's Translation, p. 201. 



