I04 THE DOLPHIN— ICHTHYOPHAGI— THE TUNNY 



Phaedimus states : " The Tunny is so sensible of the equinoxes 

 and solstices that he teaches even men themselves without 

 the help of any astrological table." i Further, that being dim 

 sighted, or as according to ^.schylus " casting a squint-eye 

 like a Tunny," the fish always coast the Euxine Sea on the right 

 side and contrariwise when they come forth — " prudently 

 committing the care of their bodies to their best eye ! " 



Again, although the fish lack knowledge of arithmetic, 

 they are yet so endowed that " they arrive in such a manner to 

 the perfection of that science," that for mutual love and protec- 

 tion " they always make up their whole fry into the form of a 

 cube and make a solid of the whole number consisting of six 

 equal planes, and swim in such order as to present an equal 

 front in each direction." 



" The Tunny more than any other fish delights in the heat 

 of the sun. It will burrow for warmth in the sand in shallow 

 waters near the shore, or will, because it is warm, disport itself 

 on the surface of the sea." 2 With this pleasure inevitably 

 surgit aliquid amari, for about the rising of the Dog-star this 

 fish, as well as the sword fish, became the prey of a piercing 

 parasite, which was nicknamed the " gadfly." 



The ordinary weights and sizes to which the Tunny attained 

 are uncertain. The passages in Arist., A^. H., VHI. 30, and in 

 Pliny, IX. 17, on account of the doubt whether the span of tail 

 should be two or five cubits are not authoritative. Richter 

 records the capture in 1565 of a fish thirty-two feet long and 

 sixteen feet thick, on whose skin a ship of war was depicted 

 in its entirety.3 



The power of the skin to expand seems the only limitation 

 of their size and weight, for they take on fat till they burst.'* 

 No wonder that for beasts of such dimensions the Celtse used 

 great iron hooks,^ which elsewhere were double. ^ But their 



^ Plutarch, de Sol. Anim., ch. 29. 

 » Arist., N. H.. VIII. 19. 

 ' Ichthyol., II. p. 376. 



* Pliny, N. H., IX. 20, on the say-so of Arist., N. H., VI. 16, " pinguescunt 

 in tantum ut dehiscant." 



* lEMaxi, de nat. an., XIII. 16. 



* Oppian, hal.. III. 285. 



