1895. PB CEEDING S OF THE XA TIONA L M USE UM. 1 G 9 



preserved or known, is in a single passage of Pliny's Natural History'. 

 According to Pliny, the Esox or Esos Mas a very large fish of the 

 Eliine, equaling the tunny in size, that is, weighing about 1,200 pounds, 

 and which might require a yoke of oxen to haul it out.' 



Gesner imagined this notice to be referable to the pike, and he 

 appears to have been the originator of the misconception, which, how- 

 ever, was not shared by his contemi)oraries or many of his successors. 

 There is, indeed, good ground to believe that the name used by Pliny 

 was a corruption of some German or Gallic designation of the sturgeon. 



V. 



Belone is generally connected with the gars, and by later lexicogra- 

 phers, as Liddell, Scott, and Drisler (1883), defined as "a sharp-nosed 

 kind of fish, garfish, elsewhere paipiqP This is, however, at most only 

 I)artially true. The notices of Aristotle clearly indicate that in most 

 cases a syngnathid or pipefish was the form intended; such as the 

 statements that the belone, in the period of reproduction, splits apart 

 and thus allows the eggs to escape, having a slit under the stomach 

 and intestine which, when the eggs are discharged, heals up (VI, 11,2) -^ 

 and also that the belone is late in ])arturition and then burst, and that 

 the young attach themselves to the parent (Aristotle, VI, 10, 4), The 

 statement that the kingfisher's nest is principally composed of back- 

 bones of the belone^ is also significant. 



The point in the statement that the halcyon makes its nest of the 

 belone's bones relates to the size of the fish. The gar is a compara- 

 tively large fish, and not likely to have been used in such connection. 

 ^N'or is it obvious how the bones were identified as the belone's,^ and it 

 is i)robable that the allegation involves a generalization based on an 

 extremely limited number of observatit)ns of nests in which dried pipe- 

 fishes or their exoskeletons may have been found. It should not be 

 forgotten, either, that the kingfisher scarcely makes a nest deliberately 

 of fish bones. According to Seebohm,^ 



The kingfislier does not malce any more uest than that which the ejectecl fish houes 

 supply. * * * Upon this nest of hsh bones, if uest it can be j)roperly called, the 



iBooklX, chap. 17 (15). 



"~ Pnecipuamagnitudinethynni : invenimus talenta xv pependisse. Ejusdem caiuUe 

 latitudinem duo [quinciue] cubita et palmum. Sunt et iu quibusdaui amnibus hand 

 niinorcs: Silurus in Nilo; Esox in Rheno; Attilus in Pado, inertia pinguescens, ad 

 mille aliquando libras, catenate captus hamo, nee nisi bovum Jugis extractus. 

 (Pliny, IX, cap. 17 (15).) 



^0(' /Z6V ovv a/.'koL Ix^v'^i yovu TiKTnvai kol tU cili (Kpulcnv f/v 6i Ka?iOvai Tiveg ,3eZ6i7;i', orav 

 Tj('iTj (jpar/ Tov TLKreiv, 6La[){)fjyvvTtti, Kal ovtu ra ua e^ipx^Tai' exu y(ip ^iva 6 ix^H ovrof (ha- 

 <pvaiv i'Tvu TT/v •jCiarepa aal to t/tqoi', (jcnep ol TV(^~Aival udei^ 6aav, 6'tKT^Kr], avfi<!>i£Tal -nira 

 Trd/ii^.— Aristotle, Uepi ra ^ua iaTopiuv E (VI), cap. 13 (12).— I use the Paris edition of 

 Didot (Opera, III, 1854). 



■"Aristotle, IX, 15. 



■■^No reference is made anywhere to the green color characteristic of the bones of 

 the gars. 



fiHist. Brit. Birds. II, p. 344. 



