Chap. 3.] LABGEST A2HIMAX5 !>' THE OCEiy. 36] 



bis/^ are in the habit of making the doors of their honses with 

 the jaw-bones '^^ of fishes, and raftering the roofs with their bones, 

 many of which were found as much as forty cubits in length. 

 At this place, too, the sea-monsters, just like so many cattle,^' 

 were in the habit of coming on shore, and, after feeding on the 

 roots of shrubs, they would return ; some of them, which had 

 the heads of horses,^- asses, and bull*;, found a pasture in the 

 crops of grain. 



CHAP. 3. (4.) THE LARGEST ANIMALS THAT AIIE F0I3T) EN* EACH 



OCEAN. 



The largest animals found in the Indian Sea are the pistrix 

 and the balaena ; while of the Gallic Ocean the physeter^® is 



champs sng'gests that the Gedrosi mentioned this in relation to the 

 Ichthyophagi, "vvho were probably their neighbours. 



1= Also called the Cophetes. ' See B. ri. c. 25. The commander of 

 Alexander's fleet more especially alluded to. is probably Xearchus, who 

 wrote an account of his voyage, t^ which Pliny has previously made allu- 

 sion in B. vi. and which is followed by Strabo, in B. xv., and by Arrian, in 

 his '* Indica." 



16 Hardouin remarks, that the Basques of his day were in the habit of 

 fencing their gardens with the ribs of the whale, which sometimes ex- 

 ceeded twenty feet in length ; and Cuvier says, that at the present time, the 

 jaw-bone of the whale is used in Xorway for the purpose of nuking beams 

 or posts for buildings. 



1' Onesicritus. quoted by Strabo. B. xv., says., that in the vicinity of 

 Taprobane, or Ceylon, there were animals which had an amphibious life, 

 some of which resembled oxen, some horses, and various other land aTn'mal?;. 

 Cuvier is of opinion, that not improbably the " Trichecum manatum" and 

 the •* Trichecum dagong" of Linnaeus are alluded to, which are herbivorous 

 animals, though nearly allied to the cetacea, and which are in the habit of 

 coming to pasture on the grass or sea- weed they may chance to find on the 

 shore. 



i» It is remarked by Cuvier, that there is no resemblance whatever be- 

 tween the domesticated animals and any of the cetacea ; but that the 

 imagination of the vulgar has pictured to itself these supposed resem- 

 blances, by the aid of a lively imagination. 



'^ From the Greek pvatjri'fp, " a blower," probably one of the whale 

 species, so called from its blowing forth the water. Hardouin remarks, that 

 Pliny mentions the GaUic Ocean, in B. vi. c. 33, as ending at the Pyrenees ; 

 and,' probably, by this term he means the modem Bay of Biscay. Eonde- 

 letius, B. xvi. c.'l4, says, that this fish is the same that is called by the 

 Xarbonnese peio mular, by the Italians capidoho, and by the people of 

 Saint onge, '' sedenette." Cuvier conjectures also, that this was some kind 

 of large whale ; a fish which was not imfrequently found, in former times, 

 in the'gulf of Aquitaine, the inhabitants of the shores of which were skilled 

 in its pursuit. Ajasson states that Yalmoni de Bomare was of opinion 



