[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.”]