380 plint's natueal histoet. [Book IX. 



ber. Some are covered with a hide and hair, as the sea-calf 

 and hippopotamus, for instance ; others again, with a hide 

 only, as the dolphin ; others again, with a shell,® as the turtle ; 

 others, with a coat as hard as a stone, like the oyster and other 

 shell-fish ; others, with a crust, such as the cray-fish ; others, 

 with a crust and spines, like the sea-urchin ; others, with 

 scales, as fishes in general ; others, with a rough skin, as the 

 squatina,^ the skin of which is used for polishing wood and 

 ivory ; others, with a soft skin, like the muraena ; ^" and others 

 with none at all, like the polj^us.^^ 



CHAP. 15. (13.) THOSE WHICH ARE COVERED WITH HAIE, OE 



HAVE NONE, AND HOW THEY BEING FOETH. SEA-CALVES, OE 

 PIIOC^. 



Those aquatic animals which are covered with hair are vivi- 

 parous, such, for instance, as the pristis, the balaena,^- and the 

 sea-calf. This last brings forth its young on land, and, like the 

 sheep, produces an after-birth. In coupling, they adhere 

 after the manner of the canine species ; the female some- 

 times produces even more than two, and rears her young at 

 the breast. She does not take them down to the sea until the 

 twelfth day, and after that time makes them become used to 

 it by degrees.^^ These animals are killed with the greatest dif- 



8 The Latin is " cortex," which probably means a " bark," or " rind." 

 Ajasson remarks upon the meagreness of the Latin language, in supplpng 

 appropriate words for scientific purposes, and congratulates himself upon 

 adding the word, "carapax," (signifying " caUipash," as we caU it) to the 

 Latin vocabulary. 



^ By us known as the "angel-fish," the " Squalus squatina" of Linnaeus, 

 a kind of shark. From this property of its skin, it was called by the Greeks 

 pivi], the " file." See B. xxxii. c. 53. 



1*^ Probably the Muraena helena of Linnaeus. See more on it in c. 23 of 

 the present Book. 



11 Spoken of more fully in c. 23 of this Book. 



12 Cuvier remarks, how very inappropriately Pliny places the pristis 

 (probably the saw-fish) and the balaena among the animals that are 

 covered with hair. Aristotle, he says, in his Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 12, 

 goes so far as to say that the pristis and the ox-fish (a kind of ray or 

 thorn-back, probably) bring forth their young like the balaena and the 

 dolphin, but does not go beyond that. Cuvier says also, that what is here 

 stated of the sea-calf is in general correct, except the statements as to the 

 properties of its skin and its right fin, the stories relative to which are, of 

 course, neither more nor less than fabulous. 



13 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 11, states to the like efi'ect. 



