But except just to mention “tickling,” an ancient device in both Oppian and Ælian, we have room here only for four methods, all very quaint, either unknown or uncommon among twentieth-century fishers. The _first_, that by which the goat-herd annexes the _Sargus_, according to Oppian.[580] In hot weather it was, and still is, in Sicily the wont of the goat-herds to drive their flocks to some cool shallow of the sea. “Once upon a time” one of them noticed that the _sargi_ came round the goats in vast shoals. The reason for this—whether grasped in a moment by one great brain, or evolved by two or three generations of speculating herdsmen—was discovered to be the attraction of the male _sargus_ by the smell of the female goat. So the reasoning goat-herd slays his nanny, puts himself inside her skin, and to perfect, I presume, the resemblance of the deception, “adjusts on his brows the horns!” Then he gently glides into the shallow, “scatters the food full shower” among the _sargi_ hot on their amorous mission and, well! for the number that were slain by “The Sturdy Rod his latent Hand extends” I refer you to the fourth book of the _Halieutica_! Ichthyologists declare that the male _sargus_ is very uxorious, and has at least one hundred wives always in close-herded attendance on him. As the words “unhappy lovers” indicate that the _sargi_ were present not a few, these multiplied by one hundred must have yielded quite a decent creel.[581] The _second_ method owes its success to the love for music and for watching the dance, which Aristotle and Ælian assert to be characteristic of several fishes, but especially of the skate. The recipe of this method, far pleasanter, certainly less odoriferous than that of the last, demands 1 Boat, 1 Violin, 1 big Net, 2 Men, one of whom fiddles, while the other dances as he unwinds the net. Attracted to the spot, and, like Wagner-devotees, so entirely absorbed by the melody as to be unconscious of all else, the skates fall easy and numerous victims to the slowly drawn net. This method seems “the limit.” It certainly trenched on even Badham’s credulity. He states that he would not have cited this statement of Ælian’s, unless it had been “singularly countenanced and confirmed by no less a person than the great French ichthyologist, Rondolet,” whose mere name in this musical context must presumably carry conviction, for (as is not unusual with Badham) no reference is given.[582] The _third_ method, employed by the Mysians for capturing the _Silurus_ in big rivers like the Danube and the Volga, is set forth by Ælian (XIV. 25) in words which describe with such charming _naïveté_ the perfection of the Silurian palate, eye, and possibly nose, enabling it to discriminate instantly between “the lungs of a wild” and other “bull,”[583] that we may venture upon quoting the whole passage: