CHAPTER XV. 



ANCIENT FISH-LORE. 



" Vera vulgi opinio, quidquid nafcatur in parte naturae ulla, 

 et in mare effe, praeterque multa quae nufquam alibi." (PLINY, 

 Nat. Hift.j ix. i.) 



N no department of natural hiftory is 

 the ignorance and credulity of ancient 

 writers fo noticeable as in their 

 account of fifh. Our own popular 

 mifconceptions with regard to the habits and 

 economy of fifh may well induce us to view with 

 indulgence the fhort-comings of ancient naturalifts ; 

 and the Fisheries Exhibition of 1 883 feems to have 

 effected but little improvement in this refpect. 

 The knowledge of the people with regard to fifh, 

 however, has increafed wonderfully between the 

 reign of Henry VII. and our own days ; in the 

 cafe of ancient fcientific writers ufmg the word 

 " fcientific " of the befl knowledge of the time 

 not only does the knowledge of fifhes and their 

 economy appear not to have improved at all in 

 the four hundred years which intervened between 



