ELECTRIC FISHES. 155 



has given a very vivid description of these actions in 

 the following lines : 



1 Who has not heard of the power of the dreadful 

 ray, of the benumbing force to which it owes its name. 1 

 Formed only of gristle, it swims slowly against the 

 waves or creeps sluggishly on the waterwashed sand. 

 Nature has armed it with an icy poison, has poured 

 into its marrow coldness to freeze and stiffen all living 

 things, and has filled it with everlasting winter. To 

 these gifts of nature it adds craft, and, conscious of 

 power, it remains quietly stretched among the sea- 

 grasses ; yet when some animal, swimming upward to 

 the sea-top, passes near, unpunished it fearlessly feeds 

 on the living limbs. Nor when, having carelessly bitten 

 at some bait, it feels the line, the bent hook in its mouth, 

 does it attempt flight, biting itself free, but craftily 

 creeping yet nearer to the dark hair-line, conscious of 

 its power, it pours the electric breath from its poison- 

 ous veins far and wide over the water. The electric 

 fluid flashes along hook and line, harming even the 

 fisherman where he stands above the water ; from the 

 lowest depth the dreadful lightning flashes, and passing 

 along the hanging line, by the magic of its power 

 carries cold as of ice through the rod, woundino- the 



o 



strong arm and curdling the blood of the fisherman, 

 who, terror-struck, throws away the baneful prey, and, 

 careless of his line, hurries homeward with dismay.' 



After the theory of electricity had received a new 

 development in consequence of the discoveries of 

 Cralvani and Volta, these fishes were frequently studied 



Older notices of the Torpedo occur in Pliny, ^Elian, Oppian (whose 

 poem on fishing Claudianus appears to have known), and in Aristotle. 

 1 Torpedo, from torpor = numbness. 



