150 PEOSE HAIIEUTICS. 



fry, and then souse them in vinegar or other sonr sauce. 

 Epicharmus and Dorion describe the process in Athe- 

 nseus, thus : ' Score the fish across the back, fry in oil, 

 with a seasoning of salt, chopped rue, and grated cheese, 

 and serve, soused in vinegar/ A nearly similar mode 

 of dressing gurnard is stiU had recourse to in France 

 and Italy ; but sometimes, in place of frying, our Gallic 

 neighbours boil the fish in wine and sorrel-water, and 

 then plunge it into vinegar well aromatized with saflron, 

 pepper, salt, and other condiments. A line from the 

 ' immortal bard ' shows that the dish of Epicharmus, the 

 ' cuocciu maiinato ' of Naples, was trite to a proverb 

 (and so, it is to be presumed, generally approved of) as 

 far back as, and probably long before, the days of Queen 

 Elizabeth : ' If I be not a soused gurnard,' says Sir 

 John Falstaff, 'I'm ashamed of my men ! ' We must, 

 however, leave the soused, to say a few words about the 

 dactylopterus volitans, or flying gurnard. 



The ancients were well acquainted with this and some 

 other aeronautic species ; Oppian mentions no less than 

 three ; characterized, inter alia, by greater or less aero- 

 tomic powers of fin. ' The swallow's flight,' he tells us, 

 ' is low and short, the irexes scarcely rise above the 

 water {a^yeBov aepedovTcu) , but advance, alternately beat- 

 ing and skimming the surface of the waves ; the theutis 

 alone takes a long flight.' Authors difier considerably 

 as to the maximum height attained by these volatile 

 fish : in many instances, as intimated by the Greek poet 

 above cited, 



'Tia only a bounce, as thougli they were trying 



By bounding and skipping to teach themselves flying ; 



others of them take long flying leaps, and then subside 

 slowly on the parachute of their pectoral fins. The dac- 

 tylopterus volitans (and not volans, for even his progress 

 is but a series of short, fitful flights, not one sustained 



