[See also specific varieties in separate categories]
Egypt circa 454 BCE
Herodotus (G. C. Macaulay, Trans.), An Account of Egypt [Euterpa, the second book of his Histories], circa 430 BCE.
Fish which swim in shoals are not much produced in the rivers, but are bred in the lakes, and they do as follows:—When there comes upon them the desire to breed, they swim out in shoals towards the sea; and the males lead the way shedding forth their milt as they go, while the females, coming after and swallowing it up, from it become impregnated: and when they have become full of young in the sea they swim up back again, each shoal to its own haunts. The same however no longer lead the way as before, but the lead comes now to the females, and they leading the way in shoals do just as the males did, that is to say they shed forth their eggs by a few grains at a time, and the males coming after swallow them up. Now these grains are fish, and from the grains which survive and are not swallowed, the fish grow which afterwards are bred up…. When the Nile begins to swell, the hollow places of the land and the depressions by the side of the river first begin to fill, as the water soaks through from the river, and so soon as they become full of water, at once they are all filled with little fishes …. In the preceding year, when the Nile goes down, the fish first lay eggs in the mud and then retire with the last of the retreating waters; and when the time comes round again, and the water once more comes over the land, from these eggs forthwith are produced the fishes of which I speak.
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Botswana 1849
David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 1857, Chapter 3.
They mention ten kinds of fish in their river; and, in their songs of praise to the Zouga, say, “The messenger sent in haste is always forced to spend the night on the way by the abundance of food you place before him.” The Bayeiye live much on fish, which is quite an abomination to the Bechuanas of the south; and they catch them in large numbers….
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France 1893.
Edward Harrison Barker, Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside, 1894. Chapter: In Upper Perigord.
And yet there were multitudes of fish swimming on the surface; the water seemed alive with them.
