Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

io8 ARISTOTLE THE FIRST SCALE-READERattributed to him, of being the first writer to note, certainlythe first to point out, that its scales make possible a shrewd,in the case of the murex an exact, computation of the age ofa fish.If from lack of the microscope he did not in all particularsantedate, he certainly blazed the trail for the discovery ofscale-reading at the close of the eighteenth century by theDutch microscopist van Leeuwenhoek ^ and its rediscovery asregards the carp in 1899 by Hoffbauer,^ the Gadidce andPleuronedidce in 1900-03 by J. Stuart Thomson, 3 and theSalmonidcB about 1904 by H. W. Johnston and others.*He tells us in The Natural History, 1. 1, that "what the featheris in a bird, the scale is in a fish ";inIII. 11, ^ that " the scalesof fish become harder and thicker, and in those which are wastingor aging, become still harder " ;in VIIL 30, that " the old fishare distinguishable by the size " (note this " !) and the hardnessof their scales." ^He then buttresses this discovery of annual growth of scaleby another fact resulting from his observation that " theMurex lives for about six years, and the yearly increase isindicated by a distinct interval in the spiral convolution ofthe shell," ' or as Bohn renders the words, " its annual increaseis seen in the divisions on the hehx of its shell."In Leeuwenhoek^ we read that, in the examination by^ Select Works, vol. i. p. 69. London, 1 798-1 801." Die Altersbestimmung des Karpfen an seiner Schuppe," in the R. Jahresbey.^des Schlesischen Fischerei-Vereins fur 1899.^ "The periodic growth of Scales in Gadidae and Pleuronectidae as anIndex of Age," in the Journal of the Marine Biolog. Assoc. (1900-03), VI.373-375-* Reports of Scottish Fishery Board, 1904, 1906, 1907.* Cf. Anim. Gen., V. 3.* S^Xot 5' ol yepoures avrwv rcfi fj-eyedei twv \€irlBa)v Kal Tp (rK\T]p6TriTi. ProfessorD'Arcy Thompson, in his translation, renders this sentence " the age of a scalyfish maybe told by the size and hardness of the scales." It is most probable,though not a certainty, from contextual reasons, from Aristotle's habit ofcasually harking back, and from Phny in his translation of it {N. H., IX. 33)applying it generally, that this sentence applies to all fish, and not solely tothe Tunny.' V. 15. ri yap irop(pvpa wepl €ttj 6|, Kal Kad' eKaarov iiiiavrhv (pavfpd fcrriv fjaS^rjffis ro7s Siao'T'ij/tao-t rols iv t^ 6crrpdK({i ttjs tKiKos. The translation above istaken from Professor D'Arcy "Thompson {ibid.), to whose kindness I owe thefollowing reference and much else in this chapter. Pliny, IX. 60, makes theMurex live seven years.® Select Works, I. 69, London, 1 798-1801,