HALIEUTICA, III. 577-606 



and the Needle-fishes and the tribes of the wide- 

 spread Dentex. The Mackerels, when they see 

 others crouching in the net, are fain to enter the 

 many-meshed snare of destruction — such delight 

 possesses them when they behold : like untried 

 children who, when they see the bright flashing of 

 blazing fire, rejoice in its rays and are fain to touch 

 it and stretch a childish hand into the flame, and 

 speedily the fire proves unkind ; even so the 

 Mackerels are fain to rush within the covert of the 

 ambush whence there is no return and find their 

 fondness fatal. Then some land in the Mider meshes 

 and leap out, but others, penned in the narrower 

 openings, sufiPer a bitter fate by strangling. When 

 the net is hauled ashore, thou shalt see them in 

 multitudes on either side fixed as with nails, some 

 still minded to enter the net of destruction, others 

 already eager to escape from their evil plight, held 

 fast within the dripping nets. 



The Tunnies again suffer like affliction with the 

 Mackerel by their foolishness. For they also are 

 possessed by a similar fatal desire to come A^-ithin the 

 loins of the crafty net ; they do not however essay 

 to enter the belly of the net under water but assail 

 it with their crooked teeth, devising to make a 

 passage sufficient for their body. The wet net 

 becomes stretched about their infixed teeth and they 

 have no means of escape, but labouring under the 

 entanglement about their mouth they are haled to 

 the land, taken by their ovm witlessness. 



Such also is the counsel of the Needle-fishes." 

 These when they have escaped the bosom of the net 



" The Gar-fish, Belone acus, M.G. ^eXoviSa, j^apydva. Cf. 

 C. ii. 392 n. 



395 



