ACANTHOPTERYGII. 309 



These fishes in general feed upon the small testacea and 

 Crustacea, whose hard and coriaceous envelope they can 

 easily break with their molars. But several species have also 

 a herbivorous regimen. In some, belonging to the Red Sea 

 and the Atlantic Ocean, the Baron has found the stomach 

 and the entire intestine filled with fucus very easy to be re- 

 cognized. 



The unanimous agreement of the people which surround the 

 Mediterranean to designate these fishes by names derived 

 from sargus, such as sargue, sargo, sar, saragu, &c. indicated 

 long since that they must be the oapybg of the Greeks, and 

 the sargus of the Latins ; and what the ancients have told 

 us concerning their sargus does not contradict this indica- 

 tion. 



It was a spinous fish, with firm flesh, which had a black 

 spot to the tail, and whose body was marked with several 

 black lines characters which perfectly well agree with the 

 first species (Sargus Rondeletii, Cuv. and Val.) 



We may not, however, vouch with equal certainty for the 

 truth of all the details which the ancients have left us con- 

 cerning the habits of this fish. 



According to ./Elian and Oppian the male sargus pretended 

 to the possession of many females, and fought with fury to 

 drive away the other males. Even this passion was employed 

 as a means of catching it. A bow-net, or weel, constructed 

 of branches and verdure presented it an asylum, into which 

 it compelled its females to enter, and lastly came in itself, and 

 was taken along with them. 



The same writers attribute to it a still more extraordinary 

 disposition, namely, a lively friendship for goats. If one of 

 these appeared upon the shore the sargi would swim towards 

 it with rapidity, exhibiting their joy by great leaps. This 

 propensity was blind enough to enable a fisherman, covered 

 with the skin of a goat, with its horns, and who scattered in 



