30 MEMOIR OF RONDELET. 



Qotion of the kind of information to be derived froift. 

 tiis work. In the commencement of the tenth book, 

 he describes one of the common flying fishes of the 

 Mediterranean ( Dactylopterus volitans. Trivia voli' 

 tans, Linn,). " We have hitherto spoken," he says, 

 " chiefly of broad and scaly fishes, now we have to 

 treat of such as are rounded and of a reddish colour, 

 some of which are scaly and others not ; but all of 

 them were either very famous among the ancients, 

 or present certain and very singular marks in which 

 they diff*er from others. First of all comes the 

 ^sXiduv of the Greeks, named hirundo by the La- 

 tins, from its resemblance to the bird of that name. 

 For the same reason that name is used by almost 

 all nations; for the Greeks of the present day 

 still call it y^iXih'jiv, with the addition of the word 

 ^ago, to distinguish the fish from the bird ; our 

 countrymen call it arondella ; the inhabitants of the 

 shores of the Adriatic, rondela or rondola ; the na- 

 tives of Montpellier, rondole ; Spaniards, volador ^ 

 some of the French, wlant, because, when a stone 

 is thrown, it flies out of the water Hke a bird. 

 Others call it papilio, and some ratepenade, that is, 

 bat, because it resembles that animal in colour, as 

 well as in the size and spotting of its wings. But 

 if we consider the matter attentively, we will be 

 inclined to consider its flight (for it flies low, like 

 birds when about to take up water from a river, or 

 to collect seeds from the ground) as more resem- 

 bling that of a swallow than a bat. The hirundo- 

 then is a sea-fish, very closely resembling a swallow 



