halieutics

Halieutics, hal-i-ū′tiks, n. a treatise on fishes or fishing.

The translation of Oppian's 'Halieutics,' from which this passage and others are quoted is that by Messrs. Jones and Diaper, of Baliol College, Oxford, and was published in 1722.

The popular ideas on this subject are still those which existed hundreds of years ago, and which are expressed by Oppian in two passages in his 'Halieutics': "Uncouth the sight when they in dreadful play  Discharge their nostrils and refund a sea," and "While noisy fin-fish let their fountains fly  And spout the curling torrent to the sky."

That there were other Greek writers who dealt with fish and fishing and composed "halieutics" we know from Athenaeus.