ANCIENT PISHINa-TACKLE. 27 



procedures, by wMcli the captixre of some species was 

 effected. Aristotle prescribes a very extraordinary bait 

 for the fish salpe — which was a colocynth pill. Eels, 

 on the same authority, are caught by throwing a strong- 

 scented pickUng-tub, with a narrow-mouthed net at- 

 tached to the opening, into a river or pond; these fish, 

 attracted to the spot by the smell, enter, and cannot get 

 out again.* The male mugil, or grey mullet, was caught 

 as faunists are in the habit of catching male moths, by 

 using the female as a decoy: the practice was, to hook 

 her through the lip, and allow a sufficiency of line to 

 communicate with the male fish; after teUiug her story 

 she was drawn back again, and all the males followed, — 

 a shoal of admirers, we are assured, who, pressing close 

 round her person, as a swarm round the queen-bee, were 

 secured without difficulty. We transcribe Pliny's ac- 

 count of the matter, given in prose almost as glowing 

 as the verses in which it is celebrated by both a Greek 

 and a Latin poet: — 



Mares autem non aliter quam tomines, visa arnica, furore libi- 

 dinis perculsi, circa earn conoxirsant, alius alium prsevertere et cir- 

 cumtingere student : u.t solent juvenes amantes aut osoula aut 

 vellicationem aut aliquid aliud fartum amatoriiun venantes. 



Talk of fishes being cold-blooded after that! 



The mode of capturing the cossyphus is also remark- 

 able enough to deserve a separate notice. The cossy- 

 phus, according to Aristotle, makes the best of mates, 

 ' una contentus conjuge,' as good Roman husbands in the 

 olden time were fond of recording on their tombstones; 

 but if so, Oppian has taken great poetical liberties with 

 his reputation, describing him as the ' Great Mogul' of 

 the deep. According to this author, he possesses an 

 immense gynsecium, sufficient to keep him perpetually in 



* TiBeaa-i rSiv Tapixrjpav n Kepa/iliov, evBevTes els t6 arSfui tov 

 Kepafiiov TOV KoKoip^vov itr^/idi'.— Lib. u. c. 8. 



c 2 



