THE ANCIENTS. 19 



corresponds to the modern umbra, 1 ** or gray ling; for, in 

 the first place, a fish of this name, which he assigns to 

 the Ticino and Adige, still continues to abound in both 

 these rivers ; secondly, the name itself, which he derives 

 from the thyme-like odour exhaled by the thymalus, 

 further countenances this view, as it accords perfectly 

 with modern testimony concerning the fragrance of the 

 grayling. " Some think he feeds on water-thyme, and 

 smells of it on first being taken out of the water," says 

 Walton. " So sweetly scented is his whole body," says 

 St. Ambrose, " as to have procured for a person highly 

 aromatized the equivocal compliment, 'that he smelt 

 as daintily as a flower or a fish.'" (Gesner, Rondolet, and 

 others also bear similar testimony to the peculiar bouquet 

 exhaled by a grayling when just caught.) Thirdly, the size 

 of the fantail thymalus a cubit in length and its shape, 

 like a mugil, are items neither of them inapplicable to 

 the modern fish ; and, fourthly, a last point of resemblance, 

 which helps very materially to establish the identity of the 

 two, is the similar mode resorted to by anglers in the 

 capture of both these fishes. Every one knows that the 

 favourite food of the grayling is flies ; and the Greek 

 ,sophist tells us to the same purpose, that there is but 

 .one way for Piscator to take the thymalus, and that is, 

 r by " foregoing all the more ordinary fish baits and em- 



12 Ausonius has excellently described, in one line, the move- 

 ments of this shy fish: 



" Effugiens oculie celeri umbra natatu." 



