258 PROSE HALIEUTICS. 



not think the evidence sometimes adduced in favour of 

 this view either so strong or satisfactory as the case ad- 

 mits of. It has been said that since the Greeks and 

 Romans are known to have been universally ichthyo- 

 phagous, it is scarcely conceivable that so valuable and 

 fine a fish as the carp should have escaped their jaws ; 

 but to those who have nothing further to urge in help of 

 this conjecture, it might readily enough be replied, that 

 the ancient Cyprinus in that case can hardly be its re- 

 presentative, SLQce it is mentioned both by naturalists 

 and gastronomers without one word of culinary com- 

 mendation, or even the slightest intimation that it was 

 ever served at table at all. Not that we entertain, how- 

 ever, any doubt that this familiar inmate of the ponds 

 of Europe was really the same individual as that desig- 

 nated Kvirpivo^ by Aristotle, and cyprinus by Phny. 

 Were any one required to point out a single feature 

 by which carp might be readily distinguished from all 

 other fish, he would at once fix, as most appropriate for 

 bis purpose, on that singular fleshy palate which is 

 popularly but incorrectly known all over the world as 

 'carp's tongue,' and which, says Eondolet,* is so like 

 that organ, that ' no one seeing it ever fails to recognize 

 and to be struck with the perfect resemblance.' Now 

 Aristotle expressly says, to the same purpose, of the 

 cyprinus, that ' it has no tongue, but a soft fleshy palate 

 strongly resembling one.' Other cyprini, indeed, have 

 the same peculiarity of mouth as well, but in an inferior 

 degree, so that the red appendage is never called after 

 the barbel, the tench, or the loach, but always after the 



* A good judge ui such matters. Eoudolet was Professor of 

 Anatomy at Montpelier, and bo addicted to the science as to 

 hare conducted the autopsy of his own sou ; for this Rabelais 

 cuts him up aUve, keenly and cleverly, of course, but, according 

 to the opinion of most comparative anatomists, unfairly. 



