14 FISHES OF FANCY. 



agreeable ? Yet to " smell daintily as a flower or a fish " 

 has been accepted by our forefathers as an allowable 

 simile. One angler says the smelt has a fragrance of 

 lavender ; another that it savours of cucumber ; another 

 that the grayling has the aroma of thyme. St. Am- 

 brose called it the "sweet flower of fishes." The cuttle- 

 fish was supposed with " its sweet odour " to attract fish 

 to it ;* and the whale to obtain its food by opening its 

 mouth, whence issued "so agreeable a scent" that the 

 creatures of the deep gathered together in its jaws to enjoy 

 the fragrant atmosphere. As a general rule, too, the smell 

 of fish cooking is considered rather worse than that of fish 

 raw: yet, says an Athenian enthusiast, "the odour of a 

 cooking conger is so divine that it would make a dead man 

 sniff." 



Fish, again, are charged with being voiceless, but how 

 then about the gurnard that pipes, the other that snorts, 

 the diodon that grunts, and the others that drum and 

 whistle and play on Jews' harps ? The legend that they 

 were caught in Egypt by singing to themf is not without its 

 plausibility. " Fishes, though little, have very long ears," 

 is an old Chinese proverb ; and to this day, on the 

 Danube, men hang little bells to their nets to attract the 

 fish. In Japan the tame fish are summoned to dinner by 



* " And verily all living creatures in the sea love the smell of them 

 exceedingly well, which is the cause that fishers besmeare and anoint 

 their nets with them, to draw and allure fishes thither." Historic 

 Devices and Badges. 



f If we may believe yElian, that most unsophisticated fish, the 

 Thrissa of the Lake Mareotis, " was caught by singing to it, and by 

 the sound of clappers made of shells ;" and so musically inclined 

 was this species, and so sharp in hearing sounds even out of its own 

 element, that, dancing up, it leapt into the net spread for the purpose, 

 giving great and abundant sport. Wilkinsorfs Egypt. 



