328 FISHING GOSSIP. 



Coins are even now known which have this repre- 

 sentation ; and within not many years past a structure 

 representing the same object was found on board and 

 stolen from a Chinese fishing-boat. By the men of 

 this boat, beyond doubt, it had been esteemed a pro- 

 tecting deity to their pursuits. Later still, a figure 

 of a similar kind, formed perhaps of the head and 

 shoulders of a monkey united to the body and tail of 

 a fish, was carried to America from Japan under 

 similar circumstances. It is probable that the great 

 god Dagon of the Philistines, mentioned in the Bible, 

 and which was a male deity, and was reverenced even 

 in Etruria, although with a more emblematic image, 

 may have been either the husband or the son of Queen 

 Atergatis, since some difference was made in the 

 statues which represented them, and that of Atergatis 

 bore a female form. But it might have been in either 

 case only the restoration of what had been recognised 

 in the ages before the flood ; for a tradition is recorded 

 by Sanchoniatho that a Dagon was known in the 

 same manner at that early date. And it is to be 

 further observed that in the former case, as perhaps 

 also in the latter, these first fishermen had directed 

 their attention to the improvement of the arts of 

 agriculture, winch may account for a double signifi- 

 cation of the name. The word Dagon signifies a fish 

 divinity ; and accordingly in the history given of him 

 by the judge-prophet Samuel only his arms are men- 



