308 BRITISH ENTOMOSTRACA. 



the assertion almost in the words of Aristotle.* Oppianus, 

 in his poem ' Alieuticon,' describes the sufFerings of the 

 poor tunny and sword-fish in moving language, and 

 asserts that the fish are frequently killed by their pigmy 

 assailants. t Athenaeus repeats what his predecessors have 

 written before him ; and Salvianus, in his ' Aquatilium 

 Animalium Historia,' 1554, quotes at length the passages 

 bearing upon the subject from Aristotle, Pliny, Oppianus, 

 and Athenaeus.j Rondeletius, in his 'Libri de Piscibus 

 marinis/ 1554, repeats, for the sixth time, Aristotle's and 

 Pliny's accounts of this parasite of the tunny and sword- 

 fish, and to prove his personal knowledge of the little 

 animal in question, gives a figure of a tunny, with the 

 parasite attached, near the pectoral fin. He says it ad- 

 heres so tenaciously, that it cannot be shook oft' by any 

 agitation of the body of its host. 



Conrad Gesner, in his 'Historia Animalium De Aqua- 

 tilibus,' 1558, enters largely into the history of this para- 

 site. He describes its structure and appearance, " be- 

 cause," he says, " few people know what this parasite is, as 

 it is very small, seldom to be seen, except at the time of 

 the rising of the dog-star, and then not on many fishes, 

 but only on the tunny, sword-fish, and occasionally the 



* "Animal est parvum. scorpiouis effigie, aranei magnitudine. Hoc se, 

 et thyuno, et ei qui glaclius vocatur, crebro delphini magnitudine excedenti, 

 sub pinna affigit aculeo, tantique infestat dolore, ut in naves seepeuumero 

 exiliant. Quod et alias faciunt aliorum vim timeutes, mugiles maxime, tarn 

 pnEcipuae velocitatis, ut trausversa navigia interim superjactent." Hist. 

 Nat., lib. ix, cap. 16. 



f " Dum canis ardenti turbatur sydere cailum 



Et tlivnni et gladii diro vexantur asilo : 

 Qui n'xus madidis illos contundit in alis, 

 Non arcere queunt, non lianc propellerc pestcm, 

 lucutit hoc celeres vires, stimulosque feroces 

 Concitat ; armantur rabie, furuentque dolore : 

 Invitosque agitat pestis t'uribunda uatautes : 

 Exhorret vuinus, bacchautnr in aequore lata. 

 Hi torti stimulis incursant navibus altis : 

 Et ssepe in terram saliunt e gurgite vasto, 

 In tanto volvuut luctantu membra dolore, 

 Et vitam in tanto mutant cum morte furore." 



Alieuticon, traduct. Laurent. Lippio, liber xi, p. 24. 

 J Pp. 126-8. P. 249. 



