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Now the fishermen, observing how that most fish
avoided the casts of their hooks by cunning or by striving
with the tackling, betook themselves to force,—as the
Persians use to serve their enemies in their wars,1—
[p. 200]
making use of nets, that there might be no escape for
those that were caught either by the help of reason or
subtlety. Thus mullets and the fish called julides are
taken with sweep-nets and drag-nets, as are also several
other sorts of fish called mormuri, sargi, gobii, and labraces; those that are called casting-nets catch the mullet,
the gilthead, and the scorpion fish; and therefore Homer
calls this sort of net πανάγρα, or the all-sweeper.
2 And yet
there are some fish that are too cunning for these nets.
Thus the labrax, perceiving the drawing of the sweep-net,
with the force of his body beats a hollow place in the mud,
where he lays himself close till the net be gone over him.
But as for the dolphin, when he finds himself taken and
in the midst of the net, he remains there without being in
the least perplexed, but falls to with a great deal of joy,
and feasts upon the numerous fry within the meshes; but
so soon as he comes near the shore, he bites his way
through the net with his teeth and swims away. Or if he
chance to be taken, the fishermen do him no other harm
the first time, but only sew a sort of large bulrush to the
finny crown upon his head, and so let him go. If they
take him a second time, they punish him with stripes, well
knowing him again by the prints of the needle. But that
rarely happens. For having got pardon the first time, for
the most part of them, they acknowledge the favor, and
abstain from spoil for the future.
Moreover, among the many examples that make evident
the wariness of fish in avoiding the deceits and craft of
the fishermen, it would not be convenient to pass by that
of the cuttle-fish. For this fish, carrying near his neck at
certain black and inky sort of liquor, so soon as he perceives himself discovered, throws that liquor forth, and
darkens all the water round about him in such a manner
[p. 201]
makes his escape; imitating therein Homer's Deities, who,
when they had a mind to save any of their heroes, hid
them in an azure cloud. But of this enough.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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