CHAPTER XV, 



ANCIENT FISH-LORE. 



" Vera vulgi opinio, quidquic! nafcatur in parte naturae ulla, 

 ct in mare effe, praeterquc multa qua? nufquam alibi." (PLINY, 

 Nat, ////?., ix. I.) 



[N no department of natural hiftory is 

 the ignorance and credulity of ancient 

 writers fo noticeable as in their 

 account of fifti. Our own popular 

 mifconceptions with regard to the habits and 

 economy of rim may well induce us to view withs 

 indulgence the mort-comings of ancient naturalifts ; 

 and the Fimeries Exhibition of 1 883 feems to have 

 effected but little improvement in this refpect. 

 The knowledge of the people with regard to rim, 

 however, has increafed wonderfully between the 

 reign of Henry VII. and our own days; in the 

 cafe of ancient fcientific writers ufmg the word 

 " fcientific " of the beft knowledge of the time 

 not only does the knowledge of fifties and their 

 economy appear not to have improved at all in 

 the four hundred years which intervened between. 



