62 FISH AND FISHING. 



Go ladies now, and if you'd be ^ 



As fair, as great, as good as she, 



Go learn of her humility." J 



A fish on which the University of Cambridge was in the 

 habit of using on religious feasts, gave rise to the tract 

 entitled 'Vox Piscis ; or the Book of Pish;' containing, 

 it was alleged, three treatises found in the belly of a Cod- 

 fish in Cambridge Market, at Midsummer in 1626. This 

 fish, it was said, was caught at Lynn-deeps, carried to the 

 Vice-Chancellor by the Beadle, on the discovery being 

 duly made that it had three written treatises in its belly. 



Akin to this story is the one well known about the 

 shark that swallowed a log -book thrown overboard by a 

 pirate, and afterwards rapaciously took the first hook that 

 offered, and turned King's evidence, so as to hang the 

 villain by the revelation of the said document the log- 

 book in his inside ! 



The same religious notions attached to fishes were 

 transferred to the waters they inhabited. The Celtic race 

 in the Highlands of Scotland refrained entirely from the 

 use of fish, on account of their veneration for springs of 

 water. The following observations appeared in the pe- 

 riodical called 'Notes and Queries,' for December 1853, 

 in reference to the superstitious ideas formerly entertained 

 about rivers, &c. 



" Ancient hallowed Dee. What is the historical, tradi- 

 tional, or legendary allusion in this epithet, bestowed by 

 Milton on the river Dee ? J. W. T. 

 Dewsbury. 



