HOW FISHES FEED. 85 



fied for the purpose of crushing shell-fish. 

 Many of the brilliantly-coloured wrasses have 

 these modified teeth. Thus they have an inter- 

 maxillary tooth which is used for the purpose of 

 grinding shells against the lateral and front 

 teeth. One of the parrot-wrasses — a vegetable- 

 feeder — reduces its food to pulp within the 

 mouth, by means of specially modified teeth. 

 The food is slowly worked backwards and for- 

 wards till thoroughly masticated. This has given 

 rise to the notion, says Dr Gunther, of its being 

 a ruminant. His further remarks on this fish 

 are well worth quoting here, though we may be 

 accused of making a digression in doing so. 

 "In the reign of Claudius, according to Pliny, 

 Optatus Elipentius brought it from the Troad, 

 and introduced it into the sea between Ostium 

 and Campagna. For five years all that were 

 caught in the nets were thrown into the sea 

 again, and from that time it was an abundant 

 fish in that locality. In the time of Pliny it was 

 considered to be the first of fishes {Nunc Scaro 

 datus principahcs) ; and the expense incurred by 

 Elipentius was justified, in the opinion of the 

 Roman gourmands, by the extreme delicacy of 

 the fish. It was a fish, said the poets, whose 

 very excrements the gods themselves were un- 

 willing to reject. Its flesh was tender, agreeable, 

 sweet, easy of digestion, and quickly assimilated; 

 yet if it happened to have eaten an aplysia (a 

 species of mollusc), it produced violent diarrhoea. 

 In short, there is no fish of which so much has 

 been said by ancient writers. In the present 

 day the Scarus of the Archipelago is considered 



