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NETS BY THE ANCIENTS. 459
and tragum, which is found in the ancient Glossaries and in
Isidore of Seville*.
We find mention of the scan more especially for the capture
of the tunny and of the pclamys, which were the two prin-
cipal kinds of fish caught in the Mediterranean. Lucian speaks
of the tunny-seant, which was probably the largest net of the
kind, and he relates the circumstance of a tunny escaping from
its bag or bosom*. The scan is thrice mentioned in the Epistles
of Alciphron {I. c. and fib. i. epp. 17, 18.), and in the two latter
passages, as used for catching tunnies and pelamides. We
read also of a dolphin (ScXfa) approaching the scano ; but this
might be by accident. It was not, we apprehend, employed to
catch dolphins.
In the following passage of the Odyssey (xxii. 384-387) we
have a description of the use of a sean in a small bay. having
a sandy shore at its extremity, and consequently most suitable
for the employment of this kind of net
—
"Qot' i)(duai, ovaB' aXirJEj
KoiXoi' £j aiyta\6v jroXiiJj ixroaOe BaXaoaris
Acxnib) i^ipvaav iroXvufnw' ol Si t£ rairty
The poet here compares Penelope's suitors, who lie slain upon
the ground, to fishes, " which the fishermen by means of a net
* Tragum genus retis, ab eo quod trahatur nuncupatum : ipsum est et vcrricu-
lum. Verrere enim trahere est. Orig. x\x. 5.
The Latin name verriculum occurs in a passage of V^erius Maximus, wliich
is also remarkable for a reference to the Ionian fisheries, and for the use of the
word jactus, literally, a throw, corresponding to that which the Cornish men do-
nominate, o hawl offish.
A piscatoribus in Milesia regione verriculum trahentibus quidam jactuni emerat.
—Memor. lib. iv. cap. 1.
We introduce here an expression of Philo, in which we may remark that /?o-
Xoj ixQi