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. ATHENiEUS quotes it *, and adds the further 

 testimony of Polybitts, that in Gallia Narbonensis fish 

 are similarly dug out of the ground. 2 Strabo repeats 

 the story 3 , and the Greek naturalists one and all re- 

 ceived the statement as founded on reliable authority. 



Not so the Eomans. Livr 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 glebis 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 lb. ch. 4. 



3 Lib. iv. and xii. 



4 Lib. xlii. ch. 2. 



