476 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



hand into Straw or Sidon, and on the other into Atergatis, 

 is a convolution possible to any except an etymologist of a 

 happily extinct period. The two deities however, Dagoda 

 (or Zephyr) of the ancient Suevi, and Dagoun, the beneficent 

 principle worshipped at Pegu, may indicate some trace of 

 earlier connection before historic times. 



One or two points related by ^Elian of Egyptian fish 

 may here be cited as curiosities. He observes that the 

 Egyptian sea-tortoise hides its eggs in the sand and then 

 swims off to sea, and he points out the Darwinian adapta- 

 tion of the polypods to their environments in assuming 

 the colours of the rocks to which they cling. Egyptian 

 frogs also exhibit a remarkable intelligence in the art of 

 self-defence. When a frog, he says, sees a river serpent 

 coming, he snaps off a piece of reed or cane, and holding it 

 tight athwart him presents an impregnable defence against 

 his opponents. Sea-foxes in Egypt were, it appears, quite 

 equal in intelligence to their brethren on the land ; and the 

 angler who was so unfortunate as to make a catch of one 

 of them found his line snapped like a flash of lightning 

 before ever he could draw bait or prize from the sea. To 

 the same author we are indebted for the information 

 that fly-fishing was familiar to the Macedonians, and 

 that tickling trout was a device by no means uncommon 

 amongst the fishermen of that time in general. 



Hard by the eastern borders of Upper Egypt dwelt, in 

 ancient times, the tribe of Ichthyophagi, divided in Ptolemy's 

 map, which accords with the best classical authorities, into 

 two races, both exceedingly poor, one inhabiting the eastern 

 coast at the entrance of the Red Sea, and the other to the 

 east of the Persian Gulf, close to the land of the Gedrocians, 

 and between what is now Cape Malan and Cape Jask. Pliny 

 says this coast was thirty days' sail in length, but Pliny's 



