“The only kind that dare To form shrill sounds, and strike the trembling air.”[384] (D) Sleeps at night.[385] “Scarus _alone_ their faded eyelids close In grateful intervals of soft repose.” (Oppian, II. 661 ff.) But Aristotle (and, of course, Pliny) hold that most, perhaps all, fish do sleep, even if their eyelids are not closed: at any rate Tunnies and all flatfish do, while Pliny (X. 97) goes as far as asserting that “Dolphins and whales can be heard to snore!” (E) Has plain, not sharp or jagged, teeth.[386] (F) Never deserts his fellow fish. If he have swallowed a bait, his friends flock around him and liberate him by biting the line in two. If he be caught in trap or weel, they approaching very delicately give the prisoner the choice of (_a_) gripping with his teeth a tail “by which he is dragged through the mesh of twigs,” or (_b_) of pushing through his own tail, which they (outside) seize, and pull him through the weel _backwards_—thus avoiding damage from the twigs to the eyes of the captive.[387] This devotion to his imprisoned fellow was turned to good account by fishermen. Fastening a hook in the jaw of and trailing a net behind a female _scarus_ (preferably alive) they secured large catches by dropping the lead, which reversed the net and enmeshed the would-be rescuers. With the seed of the coriander _Scari_ are taken “with a vengeance!”[388] Ælian (I. 4) concludes a similar story, probably purloined from Oppian, for he was an adept in picking up unconsidered and unacknowledged trifles, with, “These things do they, as men do: but to do loving-kindness are _they_ born, not taught”; which demonstrates that the invaluable _Scarus_ provides men, not only with a menu, but also a moral! If we cannot absolutely claim for Martial the first mention of the jointed Fishing Rod and the natural or artificial Fly, we are safe in acclaiming him the author of the first notice, “Fishing strictly prohibited,” or “Chasse défendue,” in his “Baiano procul a lacu recede, Piscator: fuge, ne nocens recedas.” (IV. 30.) This epigram furnishes Bunsmann with one of the only three acts of _Impietas_ which he can allege against the blameless race of fishermen. Martial here solemnly warns a fellow craftsman against fishing in the lake of Baiæ, because (1) the fish there are sacred to the Emperor Domitian, (2) a previous intruder was smitten blind in the very act of landing his fish, so that—and here comes a touch of the true angler—“he could not _see_ his spoil.”