358 



BOOK IX. 



THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) WHY THE LAEGEST ANIMALS ABE F0T7ND IJT 



THE SEA. 



We have now given an account of the animals which we 

 call terrestrial, and which live as it were in a sort of society 

 with man. Among the remaining ones, it is well known 

 that the birds are the smallest ; we shall therefore first de- 

 scribe those which inhabit the seas, rivers, and standing 

 waters. 



(2.) Among these there are many to be found that exceed 

 in size any of the terrestrial animals even ; the evident cause 

 of which is the superabundance of moisture with which they 

 are supplied. Very different is the lot of the winged animals, 

 whose life is passed soaring aloft in the air. But in the seas, 

 spread out as they are far and wide, forming an element at once 

 so delicate and so vivifying, and receiving the generating prin- 

 ciples^ from the regions of the air, as they are ever produced 

 by Nature, many animals are to be found, and indeed, most of 

 those that are of monstrous form ; from the fact, no doubt, that 

 these seeds and first principles of being are so utterly con- 

 glomerated and so involved, the one with the other, from being 

 whirled to and fro, now by the action of the winds and now 

 by the waves. Hence it is that the vulgar notion may very 

 possibly be true, that whatever is produced in any other de- 

 partment of ISi ature, is to be found in the sea as well ; while, 

 at the same time, many other productions are there to be found 

 which nowhere else exist. That there are to be found in the 

 sea the forms, not only of terrestrial animals, but of inanimate 

 objects even, is easily to be understood by all who will take the 



' He has already said, in B. ii. c. 3, that "the seeds of all bodies fall 

 down from the heavens, principally into the ocean, and being mixed 

 together, we find that a variety of monstrous forms are in this way fre- 

 quently produced." 



