FOOD, VOICE, SLEEP, LOYALTY OF SCARUS 165 



But Aristotle (and, of course, Pliny) hold that most, perhaps 

 all, fish do sleep, even if their eyelids are not closed : at any 

 rate Tunnies and all flatfish do, while Pliny (X. 97) goes as 

 far as asserting that " Dolphins and whales can be heard to 

 snore ! " 



(E) Has plain, not sharp or jagged, teeth, ^ 



(F) Never deserts his fellow fish. If he have swallowed a 

 bait, his friends flock around him and liberate him by biting 

 the line in two. If he be caught in trap or weel, they approach- 

 ing very delicately give the prisoner the choice of (a) gripping 

 with his teeth a tail " by which he is dragged through the mesh 

 of twigs," or (b) of pushing through his own tail, which they 

 (outside) seize, and pull him through the weel backwards — 

 thus avoiding damage from the twigs to the eyes of the 

 captive. 2 



This devotion to his imprisoned fellow was turned to good 

 account by fishermen. Fastening a hook in the jaw of and 

 trailing a net behind a female scarus (preferably alive) they 

 secured large catches by dropping the lead, which reversed the 

 net and enmeshed the would-be rescuers. With the seed of 

 the coriander Scari are taken " with a vengeance ! " ^ 



iElian (I. 4) concludes a similar story, probably purloined 

 from Oppian, for he was an adept in picking up unconsidered 

 and unacknowledged trifles, with, " These things do they, as 

 men do : but to do loving-kindness are they born, not taught " ; 

 which demonstrates that the invaluable Scarus provides men, 

 not only with a menu, but also a moral ! 



only English translation of Athenseus (by C. D.Yonge) is made to say (VII. 113), 

 " The Scarus is the only fish which never sleeps." If Yonge had been faithful 

 to the text (Schweighauser's) which he expressly states he had adopted, he 

 would have omitted the ov, because it is in brackets and the editor expressly 

 puts against it the note " Deest vulgo negativa particula," and his accompany- 

 ing Latin translation is " unum hunc ex omnibus piscibus dormire." Kaibel 

 (Leipzig, 1887) also brackets the ov, while Dindorf (1827) ^^^ ^o ""> bracketed 

 or other. 



1 Aristotle, N. H., II. 13; PHny, XI. 61. Another instance of the care- 

 lessness of Athenaeus — induced perhaps by his omnivorous reading — is to be 

 found in the first line of VII. 113, " The Scarus, Aristotle says, has sharp or 

 jagged teeth," whereas a reference to N. H., II. 13, discloses that all fish except 

 the scarus have sharp or jagged teeth, a statement which is confirmed by 

 Rondolet. 



2 Cf. Opp., IV. 40-64 ; PHny. XXXII. 5 ; and Ovid, Hal., 9 fE. 

 8 iElian, N. H., 12, 42. 



