346 
FISHES. 
[Chap. X. 
propagate, leaving behind them their spawn, which be- 
comes vivified on the return of the waters to their ac- 
customed bed." This work of Theophrastus became the 
great authority for all subsequent writers on this ques- 
tion. Athen^us quotes it \ and adds the further 
testimony of Polybius, that in Gallia Narbonensis fish 
are similarly dug out of the ground. 2 Stkabo repeats 
the story 3 , and the Greek naturalists one and all re- 
ceived the statement as founded on reliable authority. 
Not so the Eomans. Livt mentions it as one of the 
prodigies which were to be " expiated " on the approach 
of a rupture with Macedon, that " in Gallico agro qua 
induceretur aratrum sub giebis pisces emersisse," 4 thus 
taking it out of the category of natural occurrences. 
Pomponius Mela, obliged to notice the matter in his 
account of Narbon Gaul, accompanies it with the inti- 
mation that although asserted by both Greek and 
Eoman authorities, the story was either a delusion or 
a fraud. Juvenal has a sneer for the rustic — 
" miranti sub aratro 
Piscibus inventis." — Sat. xiii. 63. 
And Seneca, whilst he quotes Theophrastus, adds iron- 
ically, that now we must go to fish with a hatchet in- 
stead of a hook ; " non cum hamis, sed cum dolabra ire 
piscatum." Pliny, who devotes the 35th chapter of 
his 9th book to this subject, uses the narrative of 
Theophrastus, but with obvious caution, and universally 
the Latin writers treated the story as a fable. 
In later times the subject received more enlightened 
attention, and Beckman, who in 1736 published his 
1 Lib. viii. ch. 2. 
2 3. ch. 4. 
3 Lib. iy. and xii. 
4 Lib. xlii. ch. 2. 
