112 ARISTOTLE THE FIRST SCALE-READER 



fishermen and his close acquaintance with the fish markets — 

 a haunting of which in Mediterranean ports was, as in Naples 

 it still is, productive of a Hberal education from the numerous 

 specimens displayed and the hundreds of vernacular names 

 applied to them. 



Contrast this with our British markets, where, despite our 

 more favourable wealth of sea-harvest, the kinds on sale seldom 

 exceed a score or so, and their vernacular names hardly reach 

 half-a-hundred. 



Granting, however, all the advantages accruing from 

 such acquaintance ^ with fishers and fishmongers, it needed 

 an Aristotle to produce a book of such keen observation and 

 (generally) accurate conclusions as his Natural History : for 

 be it remembered that this, when compared with the vast 

 volume of his other works, is a mere by-product of his industry 

 and intellect, thrown off probably in the few years of his 

 banishment. 



Little escaped his ken, or his pen. 2 At one moment he 

 notes that neither hermaphroditism nor parthenogenesis are 

 uncommon, at the next he deals with the senses in fish. The 

 question whether fish do actually hear or do not hear, remains, 

 comme les pauvres, always with us ; it remains like Etna 

 dormant for decades, suddenly to pour forth columns of print 

 which lava-like scar the fair face of many a ream of paper. 



Aristotle comes down flat-footed in his verdict : fishes 

 (we read, IV. 8) in spite of having no visible auditory organs 

 undoubtedly do hear ; " for they are observed to run away 

 from any loud noises like the rowing of a galley. Indeed some 

 people dwelling near the sea affirm that of all living creatures 

 the fish is the quickest of hearing." 



Space forbids my dwelhng on the various theories as to 



* Cf. I. V. Carus, Prodomus FauncB Meditenanecs, vol. II., Stuttgart, 

 1889-93. 



"^ Of the closeness of his observation may be instanced (i) the development 

 by the cuttle fish during the breeding season of one of his arms for trans- 

 ference to the mantle-cavity of the female — a function of which Cuvier himself 

 was ignorant, and which was not rediscovered till the latter end of the last 

 century, and (2) the method of bringing forth of the shark — -yaKehs AeTos 

 — which was forgotten, till Johannes Muller brought it to light. See D'Arcy 

 Thompson, op. cii., pp. 19-21. 



