Chap. 72.J VENOMOTJS SEA-ANIMALS. 459 



tion which has not its like in the sea f^ no, not even those insects 

 which frequent our public-houses^ in summer, and are so trouble- 

 some with their nimble leaps, nor yet those which more es- 

 pecially make the human hair their place of refuge ; for these 

 are often drawn up in a mass ^ collected around the bait. This, 

 too, is supposed to be the reason why the sleep of fish is some- 

 times so troubled in the night. Upon some fish, indeed, these 

 animals breed ^^ as parasites : among these, we find the fish 

 known as the chalcis.^^ 



CHAP. 72. (48.) — YENOMOUS SEA-ANIMALS. 



Nor yet are dire and venomous substances found wanting in the 

 sea : such, for instance, as the sea-hare " of the Indian seas, 



^2 " Adeoque nihil non gignitur in mari." 



63 " Cauponarum." " Caupona" had two significations ; that of an inn 

 where travellers obtained food and lodging, and that of a shop where wine 

 and ready-dressed meat were sold. A lower kind of inn was the popina, 

 which was principally frequented by the slaves and lower classes, and was 

 mostly used as a brothel as well. 



6^ He alludes to various kinds of sea-animals, called sea-lice and sea- 

 fleas. Cuvier says, that there are some Crustacea which have been called 

 sea-fleas and sea-lice, some of which kinds are parasites, and are attached 

 to various fishes and cetacea. Thus, he says, a pycnogonura is commonly 

 named "pediculus balaeuEe," or the "whale-louse;" one of the calygae is 

 called the *' fish-flea," another the ''mackerel-flea." The name of sea-flea, 

 he observes, has been given more especially to a very diminutive kind of 

 shrimp, in consequence of its power of leaping from place to place. 



6= Aristotle says, that the chalcis is greatly tormented by sea-fleas,, which 

 attach themselves to its gills. Cuvier remarks, that a great number of 

 fish are subject to have the gills attacked by parasitical animals of the 

 genus Lernsea or that of the monoculi of Linnseus, which have been divided 

 into many classes since. They have nothing in common, he says, with the 

 land-flea, except the name and the property of living at the expense of 

 other animals. 



66 The ancients, Cuvier says, speak of their chalcis as being of a similar 

 nature to the thryssa and the sardine (Athenaeus, B. vii.), gregarious fishes, 

 which live both in the sea and in fresh water, and the flesh of which was 

 salted. Hence he concludes that it was the same as the Clupea ficta of 

 Lacepede, the "finte" of the French, and the agone of Lombardy, 

 which unites all these characteristics, and is sometimes called the " sar- 

 dine" of the Lago di Garda. 



67 It is mentioned again in B. xxiii. c. 3. Cuvier says, that the sea- 

 hare of the ancients is the mollusc to which Linnaeus has injudiciously 

 given the name of aplysia, which Pliny gives to certain of the sponge 

 genus, and to which nomenclature of Linnaeus the modem naturalists have 

 assented. (See N. 51, p. 456. ) Its tentacles and its muzzle, he says, resemble 



