QUALITIES AND VIRTUES OF FISH. 71 



to objects and animals more directly open to observation 

 and control. 



It may, likewise, be worthy perhaps of remark, that 

 the connection subsisting between Christianity and angling 

 may have added a portion of strength as to the 

 natural feelings respecting waters and their inhabitants. 

 The apostles come to us as the poor ^fishermen of Galilee, 

 having their distinct calling, of an interesting and mo- 

 mentous character, connected with movements of waters 

 and the taking of fish. These circumstances may not 

 have been altogether inoperative in the middle ages, 

 when science and investigation lay as it were asleep, and 

 inquiries into the operations of nature were by no means 

 common. 



Ancient writers mention that whole nations of mankind 

 subsisted entirely upon fish. Herodotus gives us an ac- 

 count of the Ichthyophagi, a people of this kind. See 

 likewise on the point Pliny, 9 ; Strabo, Geogr. 15 ; 

 Diodorus Siculus, 4, 15; Ptolemeeus, Geogr. 4 ; Arria- 

 nus, in Indicis ; Solinus, Polyhistor, 65 ; Philostratus, in 

 Vita Appolonii, 3. The description of these nations by 

 Diodorus is, that the simplicity of this fish diet preserved 

 them free from diseases, but that they were short-lived. 

 A very interesting account of the fish-eaters on the bor- 

 ders of the Bed Sea is given by Agatharides (Ap Photium). 

 Pliny states that fish was the food of a large section of his 

 countrymen, Eustathius says that in the heroic ages, 

 fish were seldom eaten but in cases of want. They were 



