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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
page 97 note 1 Tehihatchef, (Asie Mineure, Paris, 1853–1869)Google Scholar remarks with great truth : ‘Les opérations des pêcheurs de l'Anatolie sont encore au point ou elles se trouvaient il y a plus de seize siècles(du temps d'Aelien).’ Unfortunately the work of the great Russian naturalist and explorer does little more than record a few disconnected observations in this regard.
page 97 note 1 It was sold for one medjid and a quarter (about four shillings). The orphos would certainly have fetched much more in antiquity, when even so small a fish as the tench sold for four drachmes (Menander, Ephes. in Athenaios, vii. 83), and, if we may believe the testimony of Archestratos (Athenaios, vii. 44), ‘the very smallest and cheapest galaios cost not less than one thousand Attic drachmes.’
page 97 note 2 Strange to say, this word is neither in the Dictionary of the Freneh Academy nor in that of Landais, nor in that of Littré. It is to be found, however, in Bescherelle, Dictionnaire National, and in any good French dictionary of natural history, as for instance that of Orbigny, vol. iii. The variety in question is known as the Cernier Brun.
page 98 note 1 The first travellers who described this fish seem to have been Belon (Pierre): Les Observations de Plusieurs Singularités et choses Mémorables Trouvées en Gréce, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arable et Autres Pays, etc.: Paris, 1554; and Gilles (Pierre), De Bosporo Thraeio, Lugduni, 1561. On the other hand, the cernium polyprion does not appear in the lists of fishes of the Mediterranean given by Smyth, William Henry: (The Mediterranean: a Memoir, Physical, Historical, and Nautical: London, 1854)Google Scholar, Rigler, L. (Die Tuerkei und ihre Bewohner: Wien, 1852)Google Scholar, and Tehihatcheff (Asie Mineure., seconde partie). The first-named of these writers was aware of the existenca of the stone bass in the Mediterranean, but errs in assigning to it the name sciaena aquila.
page 99 note 1 A remarkably complete collection of the references made by the ancient authors to the orphos was published, more than three centuries ago, by Rondeletius (Gulielmus): Zibri de Piscibus Marinis : Lugduni, 1554–55, lib. v. 25. His description alone should have sufficed to preserve the lexicographers from their manifold errors.