OXY RH YNCUS—CARP—FAST DAYS 199 
The story of how the Lupus comes to his death by the 
Prawn can be read in Oppian! and in #lian.? The fish, ever 
voracious, takes the prawns into his mouth by the thousand ; 
these, unable to resist or retreat, jump about and puncture his 
throat and jaws so seriously that he soon dies of poison and 
suffocation. 
Pliny (IX. 17), it has been claimed, under the word Esox 
intends our Esox lucius ; but Cuvier maintains, and rightly, 
that his Esox signifies some very large fish, perhaps a Tunny. 
Sulpicius Severus, a presbyter who lived in Aquitania 
(c. 365-425 A.D.) and penned an enthusiastic Life of S. Martin 
of Tour,’ writes : ‘‘ ad primum jactum reti permodico immanem 
Esocem extraxit.” It is not for me to discuss or decry this 
amazing statement of a very small net holding this monstrous 
Esox. But as the growth of a Pike under the most favour- 
able circumstances is probably not more than 2 lbs. a year 
for twelve years when usually it lessens materially, I do suggest 
that the adjective zmmanem is hardly applicable (unless St. 
Martin’s biographer, perhaps also a fisherman, has lapsed 
unconsciously into a “‘ fish story’) to a fish of about 20 or 30 
Ibs., and so would seem to confirm Cuvier.* 
Pike, Carp, and Grayling were not apparently indigenous 
in England. They were introduced from the Continent at 
some undetermined date by one of the earlier religious orders 
for the better keeping of Fast Days, which as enjoined by the 
Church, even in Queen Elizabeth’s time, amounted to no 
less than 145 in number. 
1 Op. cit. IL. 127 ff. 
2 Op. cit. I. 30. 
3 De Virtute B. Martini, III. 13. 
4 The biggest Pike ever caught in the United Kingdom seems to be the 
72-pounder mentioned by Colonel Thornton in his ‘‘ Sporting Tour.” Walton’s 
ring-decorated fish (see Gesner), three hundred years or so old, was no doubt 
heavier, ifit were genuine. At any rate a Pike of 40-50 lbs. is very exceptional. 
5 The value of the herring (Clupea havengus) was unknown to the Greeks 
and Romans, and so remained generally till the Middle Ages. ‘‘ Ignorance, 
presumably of the real nature of the Cetaceans betrayed our forefathers into 
breaking Lent, for under the impression that the whale, porpoise, and seal 
were fish, they ate them on fast days. High prices, moreover, were paid for 
such meats, and porpoise pudding was a dish of State as late as the sixteenth 
century” (P. Robinson, Fisheries Exhibition Literature, Pt. III. p. 42). Some 
laxity may, I think, be pardoned, for the very name“ porpoise ”’ (in Guernsey 
pourpeis)—derived apparently from porc-peis (porcum-+piscem)—implies that 
the creature was regarded as a “ pig-fish.” 
