Chop. 17.] PISHES. 383 



attilus- 4 of the Fadus, which, naturally of an inactive nature, 

 sometimes grows so fat as to weigh a thousand pounds, and 

 when taken with a hook, attached to a chain, requires a yoke 

 of oxen to draw iP on land. An extremely small rish, which 

 is known as the clupea,* attaches itself, with a wonderful 

 tenacity, to a certain vein in the throat of the attilus, and de- 

 stroys it by its bite. The silurtis carries devastation with it 

 wherever it goes, attacks every living creature, and often drags 

 beneath the water horses as they swim. It is also remai k- 



this name, which is only found hero and oiuv in Ilesyehius. who calls it 

 K)jrw?))(;, u of the Urge kind." Etondelet, in his account ot' river tish, 

 suggests that "exos" is the proper reading, and that under thi< name is 

 meant a species of sturgeon liesner asks if it might not possibly hare 

 been the "broehet ;" but. as Cuvier says, that tish was well-known to 

 the Romans under the name of lucius " [our pike], and it. is not sutH- 

 ciently large for Pliny to compare it to the wels or the attilus, and for 

 Heaychms to have enumerated it among the large " tishes. It is in 

 accordance, however, witli this suggestion of Uesner that the pike genus 

 :he name of eso\ " in modern Natural History. 



24 Cuvier says that there are found in the river Padus, or Po, several 

 species of very large sturgeons, and that there is one of these which still 

 bears the name, according to Salvian and Roiulelet, of adello and adilo. 

 ,Aldrovandus. he says, calls it adelo or ladano. This Cuvier takes to bo the 

 attilus of Pliny. "lUit, according to Re/./onieo. Paulus Jovius denies that 

 the attilus or mkku of the people of Ferrara is of the sturgeon genus ; 

 but says that it is so much larger than the sturgeon, and so ditfen-nt in 

 shape, tlavour. value, and natural habits, that the names of these two 

 fishes were used proverbially by trie people, when they were desiro-; 

 signify two objects of totally different nature. Re/./onieo remarks, that 

 the name given to it in Ferrara was properly " 1'adano." which became 

 corrupted into "ladano," and expresses it as his opinion that it was the 

 same with the esox. of the Rhine, lie also states, that, from the exceeding 

 whiteness of the Mesh, the ladano was called by the tishermen, sturwne 

 Jnanco. 



iezzonico says that this m.iy possibly have happened in Pliny's day, 

 but that in modern times no attilus or ladano is found weighing more 

 than 500 pounds. He says that this tish may, in comparison \\ith the 

 sturgeon, be aptly called an inert fish ; for while the sturgeon makes the 

 greatest possible resistance to the tishermen, the other is taken with the 

 greatest ease. 



26 Cuvier says, that this was probably the Petromyzon branchialis ot 

 Linnaeus, the lampillon, a little tish resembling a worm,' which adheres ti- 

 the gills of other tish, and sucks the blood. The same name was aUo 

 given to the C lupea alosa of I.immis, our ' k shad ;" indeed Linna-us ga\e 

 this name to the whole herring and pilchard genus, erroneously classing 

 them with the shad. 



