CHAPTER III. 



VIVARIA. 



\ RTIFICIAL pieces of water^ for the maintenance of 

 -'^ fishj are very ancient inventions : ponds^ with swim- 

 ming live-stockj beiag exhibited in some pictorial relics 

 of venerable Egypt. The precise purpose of these early 

 vivaria is not clearly ascertained, but in after-times cer- 

 taivlj, (and probably from the firsts) there were two kiadsj 

 sacred and profane ; the finny occupants of which met a 

 very different destiny, according as they were to be mere 

 viands for the table, 'mute' victims for the altar of the 

 particular god to whom they were dedicated, or them- 

 selves the divinities to be inquired of and propitiated.* 



* Sacred fish are stiU to be foimd, in different parts of the 

 world. Sir J. Chardin. saw, in his travels in the East, ' fish con- 

 fined in the courtyard of a mosque, with rings of gold, silver, 

 and copper through their muzzles, not for ornament,' he says, 

 ' but, as I was informed, as a token of their being consecrated. 

 No one dared touch them, such a aaorilege being supposed to draw 

 after it the vengeance of the saint to whom they were conse- 

 crated ; and his votaries, not content to leave them to his resent- 

 ment, took upon themselves to punish transgressors. An Ar- 

 menian Christian, who had ventured to take some of these fish, 

 was killed upon the spot by one of them.' Sacred fish also frisk 

 about, occasionally, in the holy waters of cloistered monopolists j 

 and Mr. Curzon, if we remember rightly, cites, in his late in- 

 teresting 'Visit to the Monasteries in the Levant,' certain fried 

 fish which were wont, to the consternation of strangers and the 

 confirmation of the faithful, to make their fitful appearance, and 

 to swim about with frizzled fins, secure from molestation, in an 

 integument of sacred batter. But we need not go to the Levant 



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