TRAITS OF THE MUGIL 267 



species are not produced by copulation, but grow spontaneously 

 from mud and sand." 1 



Apart from characteristics already mentioned, e.g. its greed 

 and guile, its hereditary feud with the Lupus, its being " the 

 swiftest of fishes " (which attribute, nevertheless, saved it not 

 from being the prey of the slowest, if not the shrewdest of 

 fishes, the Pastinaca or string-ray, 2) we find various points of 

 interest noted by ancient writers : 



(A) " Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on the 

 contrary, unwholesome for the Cestreus, for rain and snow 

 superinduce blindness." ^ 



(B) The passionate desire of the Cestreus, when about to 

 spawn, " renders it so unguarded " that, if a male or female 

 be caught, fastened to a line, allowed to swim to sea, and then 

 gently drawn back to land, shoals of the opposite sex will 

 follow the captive close up to the shore and fill the awaiting 

 nets. 4 This method of fishing, which prevails at Elis at the 

 present day, is but one, as Apostolides indicates, of the many 

 survivals in modern Greece of the ancient craft. s 



(C) The Mugil, together with three others, possesses by far 

 the best sense of hearing, " and so it is that they frequent 

 shallow water." ^ 



(D) The Mugil, anticipating the ostrich, hid its head when 

 frightened and fancied that the whole of its body was concealed. 

 Unlike the ostrich, however, it has long got cured of its 

 " ridiculous character" ', for, as Cuvier remarks, this trait in 

 modern times has not been observed. 



(E) The Mugil, although vouched for as the greediest and 

 most insatiable of feeders, attained paradoxically the sobriquet 

 of NrloTic, or the Faster. 



The epithet probably gained currency from the stomach of 

 the fish (hke that of most salmon caught in fresh water) rarely 



^ Arist., N. H., V. lo and ii. 



^ Pliny, IX. 67. 



« Arist., N. H. VIII., 19. 



* Oppian, Hal., IV. 120-145 ; Arist., op. ctt., V. 5. 



* Op. cit., p. 45. 



6 Pliny, X. 89, and iElian, IX. 7. 

 ' Pliny, IX. 26. 



T 



