Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

i64THE SCARUS—" FISHING PROHIBITED"called the Mullet, when he can annex no other food, eats thesea-hare without fatal consequences, after which he " tenerescittantum et ingratior ^ viliorque fit." These Mullet, sold byfraudulent fishermen as Scari, caused the indictment of Diphilus.Rondolet bears witness that near Massilia similar sales tookplace " ab imperitis piscatoribus," but surely " too skilled "would be the better epithet. It is but fair to add that A then.,VIII. 51, asserts that the Scams also eats the sea-hare.For this long discursus, the repute of the Scarus, the disputesof epicures and of doctors whether it be a dainty, or a sounddiet, and the exclusive properties attributed to it by Greek andRoman writers must be my excuse.Summarising these last, we find that the Scarus, in additionto being the most passionate in his love 2,alone of all fishes,(A) Is not a cannibal, but a vegetarian (Pliny, IX. 29).Oppian claims for the mugil—grey mullet—that it is the onlynon-carnivorous fish (II. 642-3). Couch gives as his consideredopinion, " Mugil capito is the only fish of which I am able toexpress my belief that it usually selects for its food nothingthat has life." Modern authorities have established that thescarus feeds on molluscs also.(B) Seems to ruminate or does ruminate. 3Belongs to,(C)"The only kind that dareTo form shrill sounds, and strike the trembling air." ^^(D)Sleeps at night." Scarus alone their faded eyelids closeIn grateful intervals of soft repose."(Oppian, II.Mayhoff would read inertior.- ^lian, I. 2.661 ff.)^ Aristotle and Pliny, supra; Oppian, I. 135-7 > ^lian, II. 54.* Aristotle (according to Athen., VIII. 3) states that the scarus and seahogare the only fashes that have any kind of voice, but in reality he (IV. 9)mentions five others, among which is the cuckoo-fish, who " whistle andgrunt " (see Pliny, XI. 112 ; Oppian, I. 134-5). Athenaeus errs, for Aristotle{N. H., IV. 9, 8) asserts that the Dolphin when out of the water " groans andcries " ; while Pliny (IX. 7) says of the Dolphin, " Pro voce gemitus humanosimilis." Aristotle expressly differentiates between the five mentioned fishand the Dolphin—for the former possess no lungs, windpipe, or pharynx,and so can produce no voice, only " sound," while " the dolphin has a voiceand therefore utters vocal and vowel sounds, for it is furnished with a lung anda windpipe."* Someone may throw at me the sentence of Seleucus of Tarsus, who in the