FOURTH WEEK] October 279 



were carcharus and squatus. Trout was originally tructa, 

 which in turn is lost in a very old Greek word, meaning 

 eat or gnaw. Perch harks back to the Latin perca, and 

 the Romans had it from the Greeks, among whom it meant 

 spotted. The Romans said minutus when they meant 

 small, and nowadays when we speak of any very small 

 fish we say minnow. Alewife in old English was applied 

 to the women, usually very stout dames, who kept ale- 

 houses. The corpulency of the fish to which the same 

 term is given, explains its derivation. 



The pike is so named from the sharp, pointed snout 

 and long, slim body, bringing to mind the old-time weapon 

 of that name; while pickerel means doubly a little pike, 

 the er and el (as in cock and cockerel) both being diminu- 

 tives. Smelt was formerly applied to any small fish and 

 comes, perhaps, from the Anglo-Saxon smeolt, which meant 

 smooth the smoothness and slipperiness of the fish 

 suggesting the name. 



Salmon comes directly from the Latin salmo, a salmon, 

 which literally meant the leaper, from satire to leap. 

 Sturgeon, from the Saxon was stiriga, literally a stirrer, 

 from the habit of the fish of stirring up the mud at the 

 bottom of the water. Dace, through its medieval forms 

 darce and dars, is from the same root as our word dart, 

 given on account of the swiftness of the fish. 



Anchovy is interesting as perhaps from the Basque 

 word antzua, meaning dry; hence the dried fish; and mullet 

 is from the Latin mullus. Herring is well worth following 

 back to its origin. We know that the most marked habit 

 of fishes of this type is their herding together in great 



