CHAP. 25.—FISHES WHICH CONCEAL THEMSELVES DURING THE SUMMER; THOSE WHICH ARE INFLUENCED BY THE STARS.
Other fishes,[1] again, are unable to bear the heat of summer,
and lie concealed during the sixty days of the hottest weather
of midsummer; such, for instance, as the glaucus,[2] the asellus,[3]
of the fish generally known by the ancients as the sea-perch; and that
there is reason for thinking that it was similar to the Perca scriba of Linnæus, having black lines running across the body. Most naturalists are
and the dorade.[4] Among the river-fish, the silurus[5] is affected by the rising of the Dog-star, and at other times it is
always sent to sleep by thunder. The same is also believed
to be the case with the sea-fish called cyprinus.[6] In addition
to this, the whole sea is sensible[7] of the rising of this star, a
thing which is more especially to be observed in the Bosporus:
for there sea-weeds and fish are seen floating on the surface, all
of which have been thrown up from the bottom.
1. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 20. As Hardouin remarks, Aristotle appears to assign the sixty days to the glaucus only.
2. Naturalists have generally supposed, following Rondelet, Cuvier says,
that the ancient glaucus was one of the class of centronotal fishes, the
Scomber amia, or the Scomber glaucus of Linnæus; but that the incorrectness of this notion is easily proved. Aristotle says, that in the glaucus
the appendices to the pylorus are few in number, as in the dorado (the
Sparus aurata of Linnæus), while on the other hand the centronoti have
them in almost greater number than any other kind of fish. Athenæus
says, B. iii., that the glaucus was a large fish, and Oppian, Hal. iii. 1. 193,
speaks of it as taken with mullet. Aristotle, B. ii. c. 13, says, that it
dwelt in deep water; but, according to Oppian, Hal. i. 170, it sought its
food among rocks and in the sand; in addition to which characteristics,
we find that it was a fish highly esteemed as a delicacy, the head being
the part more especially preferred. From all these circumstances, Cuvier
concludes that it was more probably a maigre, the Sciæna aquila of Cuvier,
than one of the centronotal fishes.
3. Literally, the "little ass." Cuvier says, that nearly all the naturalists, following Rondelet, apply this name to the merlus, the Gadus merluccius of Linnæus, or else the genus of the gadus, or cod, in general. It is true, he says, that the "onos," or "ass" of the Greeks, the "asellus"
of the Romans, was also known as the gado\s, by the Greeks; but still this
onos had very different characteristics from those of the Gadus merluccius;
and among all the gadi of Linnæus, he finds the only one that presents
any of them to be the Gadus tricirrhatus, or sea-weasel, which he therefore thinks to represent the ancient "asellus."
4. Aurata, "golden-fish." Cuvier observes, that by the Greeks this was
called xru/sofrus, "eye-brow of gold." It is the French daurade of the
Mediterranean, the "Sparus aurata" of Linnæus, and is remarkable
for a golden line in form of a crescent over the eyes. Ajasson remarks,
that it was also called )Iw/niskos, and suggests that it may have been originally called so from being first found in the Ionian Sea. From an
epigram of Martial, B. xiii. Ep. 110, it would appear that this fish was
considered a very great dainty, and that it was fattened with Lucrine
oysters.
5. This fish has been already mentioned in c. 17 of the present Book.
Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 20, says this of the glanis.
6. Further mention is made of this fish in c. 74 of the present Book.
Aristotle mentions it in B. viii. c. 25, but says nothing about it being a
sea-fish; while Dorion, as quoted by Athenæus, B. vii., expressly mentions
it among the lake and river fish. Hence Daldechamps seems inclined to
censure our author for this addition; but we find Oppian, Halieut. B. i. 11.
101 and 592, speaking of the sea cyprinus; and Athenæus speaks of the
cyprinus of Aristotle as being a sea-fish.
7. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 20. This subject is also treated of
by Pliny in B. ii. c. 40, and is again mentioned in B. xviii. c. 58.