374 PEOSE HALIEITTICS. 



was Turk enough to abuse the privilege of his nsxae, and 

 to maintain a seraglio, does not appear.* 



All anglers know that gohies are very greedy biters ; 

 in allusion to which the prince of poets says — 



But fish not with this melancholy bait, 

 For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion. 



And another sings — 



What gudgeons are we men. 



Every woman's easy prey ! 

 Though we 've felt the hook, again 



We bite, and they betray.f 



So that the ' Angler's Lament' — 



At a brandling once gudgeons would gape. 



But they seem to have alter'd their forms, now : 



Have they taken advice of the Council of Nice, 

 And rejected the Diet of Worms, now PJ 



is pure poetic fiction, a gudgeon being as incapable of re- 

 fusing a Hvely young brandling when itTalls in his way, as 

 a lion a succulent kid. In places where the goby thrives, 

 the supply is sometimes so abundant that they are thrown 

 to the pigs. The eggs of the females, which are of a pe- 

 culiar bluish colour, take a month, it is said, to hatch. 



Cyprinus Tinca (Tench). 



Tinea vocor, quare ? maculosum respice tergum, 

 Cootaque post troctam, gloria prima feror. 



Ausonius speaks disparagingly of tench, as the poor 

 man's ^is alter, ranking it with those vile fish which, as 

 Columella instructs us, answer no good purpose, either 

 to keep or cook.§ Yet in spite of the prejudice enter- 



* Thenamewasalsoone of derision, and kco^Iov tokov, son of a 

 gudgeon, was apphed to a fishmonger's heir ; as Sydney Smith's 

 equivalent cognomen, Young Crumpet, stands for a backer's son. 



t Gay. I Hood. 



§ ' Viles pisces ne oaptare quidem nedum alero conducit.' 



