[338] Pliny (XXXII., 21) and other writers show that epicures, then as now, were divided as to which was the best oyster. Mucianus awards the palm over all the other oysters to those from Cyzicus: “Cyzicena majora Lucrinis, dulciora Britannicis, suaviora Medulis, acriora Lepticis, pleniora Lucensibus, sicciora Coryphantenis, teneriora Istricis, candidiora Circeiensibus,” but Pliny in “Sed his neque dulciora neque teneriora esse ulla, compertum est,” evidently plumps for those of Circeii in Latium. The British oysters came chiefly from Rutupiæ (in Kent), now Richborough, not far from our Whitstable of oyster fame. The castle and camps of Rutupiæ and Regulbum were built by the Romans to command and secure the entrance to the Thames by the arm of the sea, which then separated Kent from the Isle of Thanet. These oysters find mention in Juvenal (IV. 141), “Rutupinoque edita fundo Ostrea callebat primo deprendere morsu.” Dalecampius says of them, “Præstantissima nutriunt.” Our modern rule that no oyster should be eaten in a month whose name lacks an r probably descends from the Mediæval
“Mensibus erratis vos ostrea manducatis.”
[339] Ep., X. 37, 7 and 8,
“Ad sua captivum quam saxa remittere mullum, Visus erit libris qui minor esse tribus.”
This is an attempt to show how large and plentiful the mullets were in Spain, and is just hospitable swagger, for Pliny, N. H., IX. 30, states that a mullet rarely exceeded two pounds.
[340] Nisard edition of Martial, Paris, 1865.
[341] Cf. Virgil, Geor., I. 139. Also Oppian, Cyneg., I. 65 f., where, as tools of the fowler, are specified, “long cords, and moist honey-coloured birdlime, and reeds which tread their track through the air.” Cf. also Ovid, Met., XV. 477, “nec volucrem viscata fallite virga.”
[342] Cantu seems to refer more naturally to the song of the call bird (Oppian, hal., IV. 120 ff.), rather than to that of the fowler, but cf. Cato (the poet of the third century a.d.), in Disticha, I. 27, “Fistula dulce canit volucrem dum decipit auceps”; and Tibullus, II. 5, 31, “Fistula cui semper decrescit harundinis ordo.” In addition to catching birds by rods and birdlime, a common practice according to Aristophanes was to confine doves, etc., with limbs tied up or with eyes covered, in a net, and thus allure other doves, etc., to the snare. Illex was the technical name for the decoy bird. For this purpose use was made both of kindred and of hostile species, such as the owl and falcon. The latter was also trained to catch the bird, which had been decoyed within its reach. Cf. Martial, Ep., XIV. 218. Aristophanes, Aves, 1082 f.
Τὰς περιστεράς θ’ ὁμοίως ξυλλαβὼν εἵρξας ἕχει κἀπαναγκάζει παλεύειν δεδεμένας ἐν δικτύῳ.
Ibid., 526 ff., trans. B. H. Kennedy: