42 PROSE HALIETJTICS. 



cause we find inexliaustible supplies and multiplication 

 of mullet at large in the open sea, that we shall there- 

 fore succeed with them in a pond ; on making the ex- 

 perimentj we shall have the mortification to learn that 

 rarely one or two out of many thousands of these deli- 

 cate fish will hear a pond life.* So^ too^ there is little 

 use imprisoning fine exotic fish, whose requirements are 

 not weU understood : such stock may live indeed, but 

 they win not multiply, and so gxe without profit. Slug- 

 gish mugUs and the voracious lupus should be selected 

 as easy to rear, as also turdi, and other saxatUe fish of 

 value. In regard to poor fish, we make, says Columella, 

 no mention of them, since they are neither worth the 

 capture nor rearing ; but as aU good fish do not thrive 

 on the same bottom, study that which is prevalent along 

 your own shore, and according as it is stony, sandy, or 

 muddy, do you imitate these same peculiarities in your 

 stew. An oozy bottom does best for flat fish, as soles, 

 turbots, and plaice ; such a pond, too, is the best nidus 

 for all kinds of coquiUages, oysters, scallops, the petun- 

 cles, (whence we derive our purples,) balani, and sphon- 

 dyles. A sandy bottom, though not absolutely bad for 

 flat fish, suits the pelagians (not heretics, but open sea 

 fish, of the same name) best ; such as e. g. auratas, the 



* This remark only applies to ponds ; not to fish ' sown,' as 

 Pliny terms it, ' in the sea.' He tells us, the high admiral Op- 

 talus, under Claudius, brought, from the Carpathian Gulf, vast 

 supplies of the hitherto uninown fish Scarus, and deposited it 

 along the line of the Campanian coast from Naples to Ostia, 

 where he continued to cruise about on the preventive service, 

 inspecting the nets of the fishermen, and not sufiering any scari 

 that might have been captured to be retained tUl ftdl five years 

 from the time of the deposit. ' See,' says the Eoman Buffon, 

 after recording this transaction, ' how gluttony, and a desire to 

 please a dainty tooth, have devised means to sow fish, and to 

 stock the sea with strange bread.' 



