[575] Pliny, IX. 67, taken totidem verbis from Aristotle, N. H., II. 17, and IX. 51.
[576] The fisherman on the Mosaic from the Hall of the Mystæ in Melos (R. C. Bosanquet, in the Jour. of Hellenic Studies (1898), xviii. 60 ff., Pl. 1) appears to have been using a glass bottle half-filled with wine as a lure. The inscription ΜΟΝΟΝ ΜΗ ΥΔΩΡ is generally taken to be late Greek for “Everything here except water” (which will be supplied by the next rainfall). But the words might be legitimately rendered: “Only let no water be used”—a natural exclamation from the devotees of the wine-god! Prof. Bosanquet, despite his fine sense of humour, has missed the double entendre.
[577] For the poisoning of the Tunny, cf. Aristot., N. H., VIII. Cakes made of cyclamen and clay were let down near the lurking places of the fish, according to Oppian.
[578] With one method of fishing the ancients (in common with nearly all the moderns) were unfamiliar. The locus is off Catalina Island, etc.: the modus is by kites with line and bait attached, to which last, moving over and on the surface of the water, the Tuna seems irresistibly attracted. See antea, p. 41, note 3.
[579] Cf. Apostolides, op. cit., p. 31.
[580] Bk. IV. 308 ff. Cf. Ælian, I. 23.
[581] Cf. Oppian, IV. 375 ff. I. Walton, citing the Sargus as an example of “the lustful fish,” quotes Dubartas, “because none can express it better than he does,” whose last two lines, as examples of this perfect expression, I cannot resist,
“Goes courting She-Goats on the grassie shore Horning their husbands, that had horns before.”
[582] But in confirmation of “this statement of Ælian,” Badham, had he taken the trouble, could have found several others by that and other authors. Thus Ælian, XVII. 18, of the Sea-roach. Ibid., VI. 31, of the Crab, which on hearing the flute and singing would not only quit the sea, but follow the retreating singer to dry land, and capture! Ælian, VI. 32, of the Thrissa states that it was caught by singing to it, and by the noise of shell clappers which induced the fish to dance itself into the Nets and boats. Cf. also Athenæus, VII. 137, where the Trichias is so delighted with singing and dancing, that when it hears music it leaps out of the sea and is enticed on land! Cf. also Herodotus, I. 141, for the story of Cyrus likening the Ionians to dancing fish. Not only were there fish that delighted in music and singing, like the dolphin (Pliny, IX. 8, musicæ arti, mulcetur symphoniæ cantu, sed præcipue hydrauli sono), but according to Philostephanus there were others, that themselves made music, like the Poeciliæ, who “sang like thrushes” (cf. Pliny, XI. 112). Of singing fish Pausanias, VIII. 21. 2, says, “among the fish in the Aroanius are the so-called spotted fish: they say that they sing like a thrush. I saw them after they were caught, but I did not hear them utter a sound, though I tarried by the river till sunset, when they were said to sing most.”
[583] The head of the ox was Thor’s bait when fishing for the monstrous Midhgardh serpent. See D. P. Chantepie de la Saussaye, The Religion of the Teutons (Boston, 1902), p. 242. C. A. Parker, The Ancient Crosses of Gosforth, Cumberland (London, 1896), p. 74 ff., describes and figures a relief representing Thor’s fishing. In this we see the line (below the boat) with an ox’s head, surrounding which are several enormous fishes.