A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2) by Beckmann

17. The Italians have a proverb, “La triglia non mangia chi la piglia,”

which implies, that he who catches a mullet is a fool if he eats it and does not sell it. When this fish is dying, it changes its colours in a very singular manner till it is entirely lifeless. This spectacle was so gratifying to the Romans, that they used to show the fish dying in a glass vessel to their guests before dinner. [118] Fr. Massarii in ix. Plinii. libr. Castigat. Bas. 1537, 4to. [119] A great service would be rendered to the natural history of the ancients, if some able systematic naturalist would collect all the Greek names used at present. Tournefort and others made a beginning. [120] Philosophical Transact. vol. lxi. 1771, part i. 310. [121] Variorum, p. 380. [122] Speculum Naturale. [123] De Nat. Anim. xiv.--Plin. xxxi. sect. 19.--Antig. Car. c. 181. [124] British Zoology, vol. iii. p. 259. [125] Pontoppidan, Natürliche Historie von Norwegen, ii. p. 236. [126] De Prima Expedit. Attilæ, ed. Fischer. Lips. 1780, 4to. [127] Printed at the end of Somneri Dict. Saxonicum. [128] See Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce, and Pennant’s Zoology, p.