SCOMBEEID^. 189 



The difficulty of distinguishing these 'fish of a day/ whe- 

 ther buoyant or in the mudj is of a different kind ; their 

 names we have; the puzzle is, in affixing to each its 

 proper owner. As to the word ' apolectus/ with which 

 we close the list, its meaning is not obscure, nor its 

 application difficult ; the iBtolian senators were called 

 ' apolecti,' being aU picked- and chosen men : applied 

 ichthyologically to the thunny, and probably to young 

 specimens only, it implied that they were of great repu- 

 tation — the very pick and prime of the market. Now, 

 if this be really the intention of the comparison, we can 

 only hope, charitably, that the -^tolians were better re- 

 presented than the fish. 



A number of different devices were had recourse to 

 for taking thunnies. Aristotle tells us that one way was 

 to transfix the fish as it lay basking like a pike on the 

 surface of the water. Suidas, speaking of the same prac- 

 tice, uses the verb Owvd^eiv (Hterally, to harpoon), to 

 designate it. A second plan, detailed by Oppian, and 

 practised among the Thracians, in the winter season, was 

 to pierce the thunnies as they lay in their mud baths at 

 the bottom of the Euxine, by means of a short thick 

 log, covered above with a sheet of lead^ and armed on 

 the under side with a fearful apparatus of barbed and 

 serrated spear-heads : this formidable club was attached 

 by a long rope to the bow of a boat, whence it was 

 hurled headlong, and if rightly directed amongst a brood 

 of pelamyds, the havoc it occasioned was terrible. 



Swift tkrougli the gloomy regions of the bay, 

 The leaded engine lights upon its prey, 

 And soon a hundred barbs, in galling chains. 

 As many victims held in writhing pains. 



' One poor fish,' as sings their elegiac poet, ' has his 

 back crushed under the thtmdering weight, another finds 

 himself mortally wounded in the flank, the belly of a 



