Deák Antal András: A Duna fölfedezése

Tartalom - III.A DANUBIUS PANNONICO-MYSICUS, 1726

T II E DISCOVERY OF THE DANUBE VOLUME IV. FISH The opening picture of the volume, which was engraved by the Dutch artist Houbraken, illustrates the fishing and contains a description of the great sturgeon. The description of the royal ish that swims up the Danube from the Black Sea to spawn is especially stressed in the book. This is underlined by the fact that beside the autochtonous fish species of the Danube, the book discusses fish that are attracted by the fresh water from the sea, lakes and swamps, and others, alien to the Danube, that come into its waters in another way: from other rivers or Lakes the fishmongers put them into the Danube so that they can live there longer and grow or just for conservation. He worked mainly following descriptions by Aldrovandi, Gesner, Villugbei and Rondeletius. He wove his observations into these scientific descriptions. He classed the fish species living in the Danube and its swamps into four groups: - River-fish: they have bones, their skin is scaly (e.g. eel or sheath fish) - four species are described; they have bones, their skins are scaly (e.g. orfe) - ten species are listed; riverfish with spiny fins (goby), which are described in two groups. - Marine fish living in rivers (fluviatiles marini). They are divided into two groups based on their skins: smooth or scaly. 1. Of those fish lacking scales he pays the greatest attention to the great sturgeon, which swam up the Danube from the Black Sea. He dissected it - the drawings can be seen in volume VI. By his meticulous study of them he contributed many new details to science. Concerning its fishing he learned, for example, that it was even hunted with guns. If the huge fish was injured or dazed, a rope was quickly passed through the gills and the mouth. Then a picket was fixed to the end of the rope so that the rope could not slip out and the fish was dragged to the bank by a boat. People then surrounded it where it lay and, enveloping it a very long and loosely woven net, pulled from a boat. If the nose of the fish had not been caught in the net by then, they tickled it, and the fish, which did not like being tickled, retreated, then the fishermen drove the fish with continuous tickling close to the bank where it became stranded in the shallow water or even jumped out onto the bank. Then it was bound to the trees standing on the bank or to strong poles in the manner described above and put back into the river, so that later it could be hauled by boat to the market of a large town. Mátyás Bél also witnessed and described this latter method of the fishing the great sturgeon.

291 He thought that the caressing of the fish was meant to calm the animal down. 2. Of the species that resembled the great sturgeon but had rough skins (cute aspera) he devoted most attention to sterlet since its meat was said to be better than that of the great sturgeon. At the end of the chapter he remarked that all the fish that swam up from the sea turned back two miles under Komárom. According to the observations of the fishermen, they always followed the same route. Swamp fish. These fish species are also discussed in rwo groups: those with smooth skin and those with scaly skins. Fish with scaly skin include the Veres Szárnyukeszégh (roach), the Karasak (crucian carp) and the Varjahal (tench). River and swamp fishes. All of these fish species have scaly skins but their fins can be either spiny or not spiny. The latter ones are discussed in five chapters. Among them we can find the descriptions and the drawings of 29

1 Bél Mátyás: Der re rustica Hungarorum. The part on fishing was translated by Antal András Deák: A magyarországi halakról és azok halászatáról. Bp. 1984. IMAGE No. 30 on page 73: Capturing sturgeon (Acipenser huso) IMAGE No. 31 on page 74: Sturgeon IMAGE No. 32 on page 74: Ide ((Idus idus) IMAGE No. 33 on page 75: Sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) IMAGE No. 34 on page 75: Pike-perch (Stizostedion vitreum) 151