CHAPTER X 



THE LEAPING TUNA 



' First be the fisher's limbs compact and sound. 

 With solid flesh and well-braced sinews bound ; 

 Let due proportion every part commend. 

 Nor leanness shrink too much, nor fat distend.' 



"I F we had lived in the time of Apollo we might have seen in the 

 Jl. home of Diana, his sister goddess, at Pisa, a picture of 

 S"eptune bringing a tuna as an offering to Jupiter, and ia many 

 cities of the Mediterranean in olden times special votive offerings 

 were made to the gods that the season's catch might be large. 

 This is done to-day at Palermo, where the priest brings out the 

 statue of the Virgin and bears it aloft, followed by the fishermen 

 and their families. One of the festivals was called ' Thunnaeum,' 

 and was a most elaborate pageant, the first tunny of the season 

 being sacrificed to !N"eptune, the god of the sea. Among the 

 ancient plays the ' Tunny Catcher ' of Sophron, who, doubtless, 

 influenced Theocritus, was famous. And it was Menander, in 

 whose play occur the lines : 



' And the disturbed and muddy sea which breeds 

 The largest Tunnies.' 



"Which certainly have no analogy in fact as the big tunnies, 

 at least to-day, prefer the clear and scintillating water of the open 

 sea. 



There are many references to the tunnies in the classics, in the 

 fishiug idyls of various nations, and in the pastorals of the fishers. 

 To-day at Santa Catalina, California, where the professional 

 fishermen are Venetians, Genoese, or descendants of the old races 

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