The Dolphin Fish and Ray’s Bream

These fish belong respectively to the families Coryphaenidae and Bramidae. The dolphin fish is to be found on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, but not in British waters.

The dolphin fish is almost certainly the hippurus of Aristotle, Pliny, Ovid and Oppian. Oppian observes that it congregates around the floating timbers of a wreck and may be caught in the neighbourhood of bundles of reeds set out to attract it, all of which is true and confirmed by the unusual kannizzati fishery practised in Malta. Although this only takes place in the autumn and is directed only at two species, the dolphin fish and the pilot fish, it accounts for a third by weight of the whole year’s landings in Malta. Anchored floats are set up by the fishermen at intervals along courses running out into the deep waters west of Malta. The dolphin fish and pilot fish collect under and around the floats and are then taken in an encircling seine net.