Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

sTRAITS OF THE MUGIL 267species are not produced by copulation, but grow spontaneouslyfrom mud and sand." 1Apart from characteristics already mentioned, e.g. its greedand guile, its hereditary feud with the Lupus, its being " theswiftest of fishes " (which attribute, nevertheless, saved it notfrom being the prey of the slowest, if not the shrewdest offishes, the Pastinaca or string-ray, 2) we find various points ofinterest noted by ancient writers :(A) " Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on thecontrary, unwholesome for the Cestreus, for rain and snowsuperinduce blindness." ^(B) The passionate desire of the Cestreus, when about tospawn, " renders it so unguarded " that, if a male or femalebe caught, fastened to a line,allowed to swim to sea, and thengently drawn back to land, shoals of the opposite sex willfollow the captive close up to the shore and fillthe awaitingnets. 4 This method of fishing, which prevails at Elis at thepresent day, is but one, as Apostolides indicates, of the manysurvivals in modern Greece of the ancient craft.(C) The Mugil, together with three others, possesses by farthe best sense of hearing, " and so it is that they frequentshallow water." ^(D) The Mugil, anticipating the ostrich, hid its head whenfrightened and fancied that the whole of its body was concealed.Unlike the ostrich, however, it has long got cured of its" ridiculous character" ', for, as Cuvier remarks, this trait inmodern times has not been observed.(E) The Mugil, although vouched for as the greediest andmost insatiable of feeders, attained paradoxically the sobriquetof NrloTic, or the Faster.The epithet probably gained currency from the stomach ofthe fish(hke that of most salmon caught in fresh water) rarely^Arist., N. H., V. lo and ii.^ Pliny, IX. 67.« Arist., N. H. VIII., 19.* Oppian, Hal., IV. 120-145 ; Arist., op. ctt., V. 5.* Op. cit., p. 45.6 Pliny, X. 89, and iElian, IX. 7.' Pliny, IX. 26.T