FOOTNOTES

[112] Histor. Animal. lib. iv. cap. 8.

[113] Lib. vii. p. 309.

[114] Animadvers. vii. 17, p. 540.

[115] Lampridii Vita Heliogab. c. 20.

[116] Lib. vii. p. 309.

[117] This fish was a first-rate article of luxury among the Romans, and was purchased at a dear rate. Juvenal says, “Mullum sex millibus emit, æquantem sane paribus sestertia libris.” See Plin. lib. ix. c. 17. The Italians have a proverb, “La triglia non mangia chi la piglia,” which implies, that he who catches a mullet is a fool if he eats it and does not sell it. When this fish is dying, it changes its colours in a very singular manner till it is entirely lifeless. This spectacle was so gratifying to the Romans, that they used to show the fish dying in a glass vessel to their guests before dinner.

[118] Fr. Massarii in ix. Plinii. libr. Castigat. Bas. 1537, 4to.

[119] A great service would be rendered to the natural history of the ancients, if some able systematic naturalist would collect all the Greek names used at present. Tournefort and others made a beginning.

[120] Philosophical Transact. vol. lxi. 1771, part i. 310.

[121] Variorum, p. 380.

[122] Speculum Naturale.

[123] De Nat. Anim. xiv.—Plin. xxxi. sect. 19.—Antig. Car. c. 181.

[124] British Zoology, vol. iii. p. 259.

[125] Pontoppidan, Natürliche Historie von Norwegen, ii. p. 236.

[126] De Prima Expedit. Attilæ, ed. Fischer. Lips. 1780, 4to.

[127] Printed at the end of Somneri Dict. Saxonicum.

[128] See Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, and Pennant’s Zoology, p. 300. Both these authors refer to Fuller’s British Worthies. [The carp existed in England before the year 1486: for in Dame Juliana Berners’ work on Angling, which was published at St. Albans (hence called the Book of St. Albans) in 1486, we find the following passage: speaking of the carp, she says “That it is a deyntous fysshe, but there ben but few in Englonde. And therefore I wryte the lesse of hym. He is an euyll fysshe to take. For he is so stronge enarmyd in the mouthe, that there maye noo weke harnays hold him.”]