“THE MANNA OF THE MEDITERRANEAN”’ ror 
“ Delphinus veterum cordibus atque animis se insinuavit, 
thynnus gulis atque ventriculis.” 1 
The annual campaign of the Tunny fishing, lasting from 
May 15 to Oct. 25, was based on a regular and thorough organisa- 
tion. All the boats of a given section of the coast acted 
under the orders of an elected Captain, whose word was law. 
Descriptions of fishing for Tunny and Pelamyde—the 
name given to the young Tunny from his habit of burying 
himself in the mud (rdw piéew),?2 a derivation often attributed 
to Aristotle, see H. A., VIII. 15, or of herding together (réAuv 
ama) according to Plutarch—may be found in Aristotle, N. H., 
IV. ro, and VIII. 15, in Pliny, H. N., IX. 53, in #lian, de nat. 
an., XV. 5 and 6, and in Oppian, al., IV. 531 ff. The story 
by the last of the Thracians piercing and taking myriads 
of mutilated Pelamydes from the mud, in which they have 
for warmth ensconced themselves, merits reading if only for 
his indignant burst : 
“‘ The various Tortures of the bleeding Shoal 
Command a Pity from the stoutest Soul.’ 3 
Aristophanes (Hipp., 313) compares Cleon to the watch 
posted on a cliff or height to signal the advent of the Tunnies, 
a position (as Theocritus (III. 26) and Oppian (hal., IV. 637) 
show), very similar to that of the ‘‘ Hooer’’ in the pilchard 
fishery of Cornwall at the present day. 
These look-outs were frequently artificial. Elian, de nat. 
an., XV. 5, describes a scaffolding consisting of two fir trees 
between which many cross pieces were fastened. The long 
1 Paulus Rhode, Thynnorum Captura (Lipsie#, 1890). Had his exhaustive 
monograph come to hand earlier, this notice would have been worthier, and 
much time spent on Aristotle, Oppian, etc., have been saved. 
* The real derivation of mndauis, which was probably a pre-Hellenic 
word, seems unknown: see E. Boisacq, Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue 
grecque (Paris, 1913), p. 779. 
* Their method was to let down by a rope from the boats blocks of wood 
(heavily weighted with lead) to which were attached great spikes and hooks, 
which on reaching the bottom were drawn to and fro, with the result that 
“here gasping Heads confess the killing Smart, | There bleeds a Tail, which 
quivers round the Dart.” Cf. a fragment from Menander’s The Fisherman, 
frag. 12 in the Frag. comicoy. Graec., IV. 77, Meineke, ‘‘The muddy sea which 
nourishes the great Tunny.”” Sophron’s Tunnyfisher seems the earliest mime, 
where this fish figures. 
