appendix iii. 303 



Ancient Fish Story.* 



The farthest stretch of profane writers into the history 

 of fishing is the mention made by Diodorus Siculus (Lib. 



I. 52) of Moeris, the immediate predecessor of Sesostris 

 (see Larcher, Chron. d'HeYodote, and Bahr on Herodotus, 



II. 100), which, according to Champollion Figeac, would 

 put him about B.C. 1500 (perhaps a hundred years too 

 soon). This Moeris, the historian says, constructed the 

 famous artificial lake called by his name, which was eighty 

 stadia long and rpiirXedpov (say four hundred feet) broad, 

 and it cost fifty talents to open and shut the flood-gates. 

 In the middle he erected two sepulchral pyramids, one for 

 himself and the other for his wife, with marble statues of 

 them both on a throne. But it was also a vast fish-pond, 

 having in it twenty-two different kinds of fish, which in- 

 creased so fast that the most extensive preparations for 

 salting them were not sufficient for the purpose. The 

 revenue derived from the fishing he assigned to his wife, 

 who had thus, out of that source, a talent (if 10,000) a day 

 for pin money. The passage is curious, as showing the 

 importance of fish as an article of food. 



A Dissertation on Shad. 



From the Belfast Journal. 



The shad was named for old Shad-rach, whom Nebu- 

 chad-nezzar considered a scaly chap, till after he passed 

 through his fiery furnace, when he was found to be a man 

 of much backbone, and in this respect the shad resembles 

 him in great quantities. Shad are nature's pin-cushions 

 for bones. They are built of the refuse stuff that was left 

 after all the rest of the fish were concocted. The interior 



* Bibliographical preface to Wiley and Putnam's edition of 

 Complete Angler, p. viii. 



