FISH AND FISHING. 45 



CHAPTEE III. 



On the Eeligious Veneration of, and Superstitious Sacredness 

 connected with Fish and Fishing. 



ONE of the most curious features in the history of 

 writings, ancient and modern, on the nature of fish and of 

 fishing, is the vast space they occupy in connection with 

 theology, and with the incoherent and superstitious ideas 

 or notions, which have floated in the minds of the human 

 family, relative to the finny tribes, from the earliest records 

 of their existence till the present hour. A thick and 

 impenetrable cloud of theological awe and symbolical 

 mysticism envelopes the entire subject. 



In Egypt the eel was devoted to religious worship. 

 These fish were ornamented with silver, gold, and precious 

 stones, and priests daily offered them the entrails of 

 animals served up with cheese. 1 In Bceotia, eels were 

 immolated to the gods. 



The Oxyrinchus, the Phagrus, and the Lepidotus, were 

 considered sacred fish, and it was unlawful to touch them. 



In the collection of Nineveh Inscriptions now in the 

 British Museum, we find a large slab, with the repre- 

 sentation of a Fish-Deity. It is one of the most curious 



I'Apallodor. in Chron. Plutarch, De Soleit. -3lian, De 

 Piscibus. 



