We proceed to suggest, in general terms, what were the fishes which frequented the Syrian waters, and supplied the ancient inhabitants with food abridging for this purpose the remarks of C. H. S. in the Art. Fist', in the first edition of this work : —[` The species which were known to the Ile brews, or at least to those who dwelt on the coast, were probably very numerous, because the usual current of the Mediterranean sets in, with a great depth of water, at the Straits of Gibraltar, and passes eastward on the African side until the shoals of the delta of the Nile benin to turn it towards the north ; it continues in &at direction along the Syrian shores, and falls into a broken course only when turning westward on the Cyprian and Cretan coasts. Every spring, with the sun's return to wards the north, innumerable troops of littoral species, having passed the winter in the ofTings of Western Africa, retnrn northward for spawning, or are impelled in that direction by other unknown laws. A small part only ascends along the Atlan tic coast of Spain and Portugal towards the British Channel, while the main bodies pass into the Me diterranean, follow the general current, and do not break into more scattered families until they have swept round the shores of Palestine.'] Lists of species of the fish frequenting various parts of the Mediterranean may be found m Risso (Ichthyol. de Nice), who describes 315 species lie had ob served at Nice ; and in Adm. Smyth's Mediter ranean, where in the chap. on Ichthyology he gives a list of about 3oo fishes haunting the waters of Sicily, besides 240 crustacea,testacea, and mollusks. Admiral Smyth remarks generally of the Medi terranean fish, that, though mostly handsomer than British fishes, they are for the most part not to be compared with them in flavour ' (pp. '92 .209). Professor E. Forbes (in his Report on ZEgean Invertebrata) divides that part of thc East Mediterranean, in which for many years he con ducted his inquiries, into eight regions of defith, each characterized by its peculiar fauna. Certain species,' he says, in each are found in no other ; several are found in one region which do not range into the next above, whilst they extend to tha._ be low, or vice versa. Certain species have their maximum of development in each zone, being most prolific in individuals at that zone in which is their maximum, and of which they may be re garded as especially characteristic. Mingled with these true natives are stragglers, owing their pre sence to the secondary influences which modify dis tribution.' C. H. S. supposes the Syrian waters to be not less prolific. ['The coasts of Tyre and Sidon would produce at least as great a number. The name of the latter place, indeed, is derived from the Phcenician word fish' (see Gesenius, s. v. /jTy, Sidon: the modern name has the same meaning, Saida ; Abulfar. Syria, p. 93.
See Winer, ii. 535, and SinoN) ; and it is the oldest fishing establishment for commercial pur poses known in history. . . . The Hebrews had a less perfect acquaintance with the species found in the Red Sea, whither, to a certain extent, the majority of fishes found in the Indian Ocean resort. Beside these, in Egypt, they had anciently eaten those of the Nile' (for the fish of the Nile, see Rawlinson's Iferodatus, I/9-I2I, and, more fully, Wilkinson's Ancient Enptians,iii. 58, and v. 248-254) ; subsequently, those of the lake y Tiberias and of the rivers falling into the Jordan' (Von Rammer, Paldstina, p. to5, after Hassel quist, mentions the SAI rleS gal /laws, a sort or bream,' the saurus and ?mesa ; and Reuchlin, in Herzog., after Dr. Barth, adds the labrns Niloticus as inhabiting this lake, MA-. n c and Palestine, p. 375, represents as 'abounding in fish of all kinds [comp. St. John xxi. 1, with St. Matt. xiv. 17 and xv. 34]. From the earliest times —so said the Rabbinical legends—this lake had been so renowned in this respect' [see Reland, p. 26o,
who quotes the Bava Bathra, of the Babylonian Gemara], that one of the ten fundamental laws laid down by Joshua was, that any one might fish with a hook in the Sea of Galilee. Two of the villages on the banks derived their name from their fisheries, the west and the east Bethsaida, house of fish" [cf. the modern name of Sidon just men tioned]. The numerous streams which flow into the Jordan are also described by Dr. Stanley as full of fish, especially the Jabbok, p. 323) ; 'and they may have been acquainted with species of other lakes, of the Orontes, and even of the Euphrates. The supply, however, of this article of food, which the Jewish people appear to have consumed largely, came chiefly from the Mediterranean. From Neh. xiii. 16 we learn that Phcenicians of Tyre actually resided in Jerusalem as dealers in fish ; which must have led to an exchange of that commodity for corn and cattle.1 C. H. S. proceeds to enu merate the most nutritious and common of the fishes which must have filled the Jewish markets [` there were genera of Percaa're (perch tribes) ; Scianida (much resembling the perches) ; and particularly the great tribe of the Scomberia'a (mackerel), with its numerous genera and still more abundant species, frequenting the Mediter ranean in prodigious numbers, and mostly excellent for the table ; but being often without perceptible scales they may have been of questionable use to the Hebrews. All the species resort to the deep seas, and foremost of them is the genus Thynnus, onr tunny'', a fish often mentioned with honour by the ancients, from Aristotle downward ; a specimen taken near Greenock, in 1831, was nine feet in length. Its flesh is highly prized, and from its great solidity it partakes much of the character of meat. Although repeatedly taken on the Eng lish coast, it is really a native of the Mediterranean, where it abounds, not only in Sicilian waters, but, in three or four species, in the Levant. The fol lowing complete C. H. S.'s catalogue ; the Magill de family (the sea mullets, mugiles, being valuable in every part of the Mediterranean) ; the Labria'a (or Wrasse of Pennant) ; and Cyprinidv (carps), particularly abundant in the fresh waters of Asia. [‘ After these may be ranged the genus Menntyrus, whereof the species, amounting to six or seven, are almost exclusively tenants of the Nile and tbe lake of Tiberias, and held among the most palatable fish which the fresh waters produce' . . . Cat or Sheat-fish (Sllurida.) are a family of numerous genera, all of which, except the Loricarier, are destitute of a scaly covering, and are consequently un clean to the Hebrews ; though several of them were held by the ancient Gentile nations and by some of the modern in high estimation, such as the black fish, probably the shilbeh (Silurns Schllbe Niloticus) of the Nile and others. Of salmons (Salino.nia',e), the Myletes dentex or Hasselquisti, belongs to the most edible fishes of the Egyptian river ; there were also C/upehire (herrings) and the Gadide (or cod), these last being present about Tyre; Pleuro neetes (or flat fish) are found off the Egyptian coasts, and eel-shaped genera are bred abundantly in the lakes of the Delta.] A compaiison of this list of Col. H. Smith, with the enumeration of the ancient Egyptian fish given by Strabo (xvii. 823), or by Sir G. Wilkinson in his Ancient Egyptians (iii. 58), will shew us that some of the fish which have to the present day preserved their excellent character as wholesome food (such as some species of the Percado [the gisher,' to wit] and the La brides, [e.g., the bultil, and the Cyprinide [e.g., the benni ;" the carpe is a dayntous fisshe,' wrote old Leonard Maschal in 1514, when he in. troduced the fish into England] ), were the identi cal diet which the children of Israel 'remembered ' so invidiously at Taberah, when they ungratefully loathed the manna (Num. xi. 5).