Class IV. SHAD. 349 



cifion, as to induce ns .to tranflate it the Shad, 

 without affixing to it our fceptic mark. Aufonius 

 has been equally negligent in refpecl to his Alaufa : 

 all he tells us is, that it was a very bad fifh : 



StrUente/que focis obfonia pie bis Alausaj. 



i 



Alaufa crackling on the embers are 

 Of wretched poverty, th' infipid fare. 



But commentators have agreed to render the 

 Bpecra of the firft, and the Alaufa of the laft, by 

 the word Shad. Perhaps they were directed by the 

 authority of Strabo, who mentions the ®?i<r<ra the 

 fuppofed Shady and the Kzt^v;, or Mullet, as fifh 

 that afcend the Nile at certain feafons, which, with 

 the Dolphin* of that river, he fays, are the only 

 kinds that venture up from the fea for fear of the 

 crocodile. That the two firft are fifh of paffage 

 in the Nik, is confirmed to us by Beloniusf, and 

 by Ha£elquift%. The laft fays it is found in the 

 Mediterranean near Smyrna, and on the coaft of 

 A&gypt, near Rofetto, and that in the months Decern- 

 her and January it afcends the Nile, as high as 

 Cairo : that it is fluffed with pot marjoram, and 



* This is the Dolphin of the Nile, a fiuVuow unknown to 

 ks. Pliny lib, VIH. c. 25. fays, it had a fliarp fin on its back, 

 with which it deftroyed the crocodile, by thrufting it into the 

 belly of that animal, the only penetrable place, 

 f Belon. It in. 98. 

 • X &• 385, 38S, Smdijb edition, 



m\tn 



