188 PROSE HALIEUTICS. 



ticidal dam follow her a little later, when they are able to 

 protect themselves from violence, on a first cruise to the 

 Mediterranean sea. The first winter they do not change 

 their name, but the next spring, on again accompanying 

 the thynnis on a new spawning expedition to the Euxine, 

 they bury themselves in the ooze, and after some months 

 come out ' pelamyds,' being so called, says Aristotle, from 

 this habit of hiding in the mud ; -rrapa to iv tw TrrjXcp 

 jjiveiv : or perhaps, says Plutarch, from herding toge- 

 ther : Sia TO TTfiXew dfw,. After passing the anniver- 

 sary of their first birthday, these pelamyds attaiued ma- 

 turity, and were dubbed thunnies in consequence. Aris- 

 totle does not directly say how long they enjoy their ma- 

 jority, but as the life of a divva is limited to two years, 

 it follows, by inference, that he can only be a thunny for 

 the space of one year. What then becomes of this large 

 fish when two years have passed over his head? Ac- 

 cording to the above author, in his ' poetic' not ' logic' 

 of natural history, he dies ; not in fact, but, like Boi- 

 leau's ianamorato, 



Toujours bien mangeant, qui meurt par metaphore, 



in pure fiction, to come out some time after, a new fish 

 vidth a new name — an ' orcynus' of unwieldy dimensions, 

 or a brevet whale (cete), as Athenseus informs us. And 

 here we are forced to stop, for at what precise period 

 of this great scomber's career he rejoiced in the appella- 

 tions of triton, cybia, melandrys, or xanthias, we know 

 positively nothing. Pope, imitating Juvenal, speaks, in 

 a well-known passage of the ' Dunciad,' of the difiiculty 

 of naming a handful of obscure critics and libellers : 



Sons of a day ! just buoyant on tlie flood, 

 Tken number'd with the puppies in the mud ; 

 Ask not their names ! I could as soon disclose 

 The names of these blind puppies as of those. 



