132 ANGLING LITERATURE 



There Is a species of fish, like the carp in England, 

 found in Bengal, 



" Where, by a thousand rivers fed, 

 Swift Ganges fills his spacious bed." 



This fish is used as a badge of dignity, under the name of 

 Mahi Maratib, and, agreeably to eastern parade, is borne 

 in ceremonials upon elephants before the officers of State. 



The type of the connection between the dignity of the 

 church and the humble employment of St. Peter, as a 

 fisherman, is not entirely disregarded by the Sovereign 

 Pontiff; his signet, the fisherman's ring, Vanello del pis- 

 calore, represents St. Peter drawing his nets ; and the 

 celebrated Namculo di Giotto? in mosaic, over the portal 

 of St. Peter's at Eome, is designed from the same subject. 1 



Pliny mentions Eulvius Urpinus as the inventor of the 

 art of fattening shell-fish. C. Caylus gives an Egyptian 

 monument, engraved upon a shell of the pinna marina, 

 and resembling a cornelian ; indeed, the ancients em- 

 ployed more than one kind of shell to imitate gems. A 

 shell upon the coins of Tyre is the emblem of the Tyrian 

 purple ; upon other coins it is the emblem of Yenus. It 

 also occurs upon the coins of Tarentum,Cuma,Pyrnus,&c. 2 



We are told that Thetis was metamorphosed into 

 a cuttle-fish when Peleus overcame her resistance ; hence 

 this fish serves as a type of Syracusan coins, and those 

 struck off in other maritime towns in Magna Gra3cia. 



1 Moule's Heraldry. 



2 Fosbroke, Ency. Antiq. vol. ii. 



