Instances of impiscation (so to speak) appear not infrequently in my pages. Oannes, with head and tail of fish, but also with human face and feet; Dagon, “Sea-monster, upward man and downward fish”; Atargatis, or Derceto, “with face of woman but body of fish”; Venus, turning herself and Cupid—and also, as one account adds, her lover Mars—into fishes to escape the pursuit of the Giants;—all these can be grouped with other myths. These tell us that Asia was saved by a fish and is supported by a tortoise, that Polynesia was brought up, itself a fish, on a fish-hook out of the primæval ocean, or that America was rescued from the depths of diluvian chaos by a turtle. Well may Robinson conclude, “Since in the beginning there were only Light and Water, the eldest of the Zoological Myths is the Fish Myth.”[688] According to de Gubernatis,[689] “the ancient systems of mythology have not ceased to exist: they have been merely diffused and transformed. The _nomen_ is changed; the _numen_ remains. Although from loss of celestial reference and significance its splendour is minished, its vitality is enormous.” We find, however, that the mythic motives or original principles common to India and Hellas (as well as Scandinavia, etc.) are most conspicuous among the Greeks. India, indeed, seems absolutely wanting in some which in Europe manifest extraordinary vitality and expansion. But in any comparative enumeration, strict regard must be paid to the fact that the fauna of a myth commonly varies with its geography; as an instance of this, the epos, which in Europe recounts the cunning of the fox, in India dilates on the craft of the serpent. The fish myth proved no exception. It passed from nation to nation gradually down the ages, till we find the Greeks, borrowers sometimes unconsciously, sometimes of set purpose, perpetuating it widely in connection with deities and sub-deities. Thus came it about that to several of the greater gods of the Greek, and afterwards of the Roman, Pantheon appertained a particular fish (or fishes). These not only enjoyed their gods’ protection, but also the double distinction of being at once an attribute represented with them and a sacrifice offered to them. The association of certain gods with certain fishes is not always obvious. While the linking of Amphitrite with the Dolphin, or of Poseidon with the Tunny is easily explained by legends of hoary tradition, it needs all the ingenuity of Eustathius to decipher the connection between Artemis and the _Mainé_.[690]