Chap. 17.] FISHES. 383 



attilus-^ of the Padus, which, naturally of an inactive nature, 

 sometimes grows so fat as to weigh a thousand pounds, and 

 when taken with a hook, attached to a chain, requires a yoke 

 of oxen to draw it-^ on land. An extremely small fish, which 

 is known as the clupea,^^ attaches itself, Tsdth a wonderful 

 tenacity, to a certain vein in the throat of the attilus, and de- 

 stroys it by its bite. The silurus carries devastation with it 

 wherever it goes, attacks every living creature, and often drags 

 beneath the water horses as they swim. It is also remark- 



this name, which is only found here and once in Hesychius, who calls it 

 KijTcjSriQ, " of the large kind." Rondelet, in his account of river fish, 

 suggests that "exos" is the proper reading, and that under this name is 

 meant a species of sturgeon. Gesner asks if it might not possibly have 

 been the "brochet;" but, as Cuvier says, that fish was well-known to 

 the Romans under the name of " lucius " [our pike], and it is not suffi- 

 ciently large for Pliny to compare it to the wels or the attilus, and for 

 Hesychius to have enumerated it among the " large " fishes. It is in 

 accordance, however, with this suggestion of Gesner that the pike genus 

 bears the name of " esos " in modern Natural History. 



21 Cuvier says that there are found in the river Padus, or Po, several 

 species of very large sturgeons, and that there is one of these which still 

 bears the name, according to Salvian and Rondelet, of adello and adilo. 

 Aldrovandus, he says, calls it adelo or ladano. This Cuvier takes to be the 

 attilus of Pliny. But, according to Rezzonico, Paulus Jovius denies that 

 the attilus or adehis of the people of Ferrara is of the sturgeon genus ; 

 but says that it is so much larger than the sturgeon, and so different in 

 shape, flavour, value, and natural habits, that the names of these two 

 fishes were used proverbially by the people, when they were desirous to 

 signify two objects of totally difi'erent nature. Rezzonico remarks, that 

 the name given to it in Ferrara was properly " I'adano," which became 

 corrupted into "ladano," and expresses it as his opinion that it was the 

 same with the esox of the Rhine, He also states, that, from the exceeding 

 whiteness of the flesh, the ladano was called by the fishermen, sturione 

 bianco. 



-= Rezzonico says that this may possibly have happened in Pliny's day, 

 but that in modern times no attilus or ladano is found weighing more 

 than 500 pounds. He says that this fish may, in comparison with the 

 sturgeon, be aptly called an inert fish ; for while the sturgeon makes the 

 greatest possible resistance to the fishermen, the other is taken with the 

 greatest ease. 



26 Cuvier says, that this was probably the Petromyzon branchialis of 

 Linnseus, the lampillon, a little fish resembling a worm, which adheres to 

 the gills of other fi^h, and sucks the blood. The same name was also 

 given to the Clupea alosa of Linnseus, our " shad ;" indeed Linnaeus gave 

 this name to the whole herring and pilchard genus, erroneously classing 

 them with the shad. 



