190 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



third is laid open; the giUs of several are ripped asunder, 

 while others are caught up by the tail :' Oppian's mack- 

 erel Muse having, in close imitation of Homer, given a 

 very graphic description of some of these terrible fish- 

 wounds, waxes tender in the recital, and winds up by 

 declaring the mutilations and carnage to be so shocking 

 as to soften the hardest-hearted veteran in the boat ; or, 

 as John Jones renders it, — 



Tlie various tortures of tlie bleeding shoal 

 Commajid a pity from tlie stoutest soul. 



Yet, with the usual inconsistency of her sex, a few lines 

 further on she depicts the same boatmen grouped to- 

 gether exulting over the expiring victims, and triumph- 

 ing in their success. It was not however by such de- 

 sultory meastu'es as these that the old markets were 

 supphed with this fish ; in former times as now, nets 

 (which, as we have seen, the ancients knew so well how 

 to manufacture) were largely employed for the purpose. 

 Few creatures are so timid as the thunny; having very 

 small brains (one 3744th of their total bulk, which is re- 

 latively but two-thirds of the same organ in the shark, 

 and half of that in the pike), their want of judgment is 

 in strict accordance with this cerebral deficiency;* so 

 that the most trifling noise in the water will often 

 fiighten a whole shoal out of its wits, and into the snares 

 of the least-experienced fisherman. This was weU- 

 known to the ancients, who accordingly took advantage 

 of it in their manoeuvres. On some dark night, a boat- 

 ful of meshes would leave the shore, and row slowly 

 with mufled oars to the spot where thunny were sus- 

 pected to He. As the place was neared, the whole ap- 



* Lucian uses the word 6vvvw8ris (thimny-like) to express 

 weakness of intellect in one of our own species ; it seems to have 

 been the Greek equivalent for one who was easily duped. 



