396 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book IX. 



the rock-fish. It is said that, during the winter, the torpedo, 98 

 the psetta, 94 and the sole, conceal themselves in the earth, or 

 rather, I should say, in excavations made by them at the bot- 

 tom of the sea. 



CHAP. 25. FISHES WHICH CONCEAL THEMSELTES DURING THE 



SUMMER ; THOSE WHICH ARE INFLUENCED BY THE STARS. 



Other fishes, 95 again, are unable to bear the heat of summer, 

 and lie concealed during the sixty days of the hottest weather 

 of midsummer ; such, for instance, as the glaucus, 96 the asellus, 97 



of the fish generally known by the ancients as the sea-perch ; and that 

 there is reason for thinking that it was similar to the Perca scriba of Lin- 

 naeus, having black lines running across the body. Most naturalists are 

 of this opinion, he says, and the serran [our trumpet-fish] which bears 

 this resemblance, is in many parts of Italy, at the present day, called the 

 " Percia marina." 



93 The Eaia torpedo of Linnaeus. 



94 Cuvier states, that Athenseus, B. vii., says that the psetta was the same 

 as the rhombus of the Romans, the modern turbot, the Pleuronectes max- 

 imus of Linnaeus. From a passage, however, of Aristotle, Hist. Anim. 

 B. ix. c. 37, he feels convinced that it is the Pleuronectes rhombus of Lin- 

 naeus, the barbue of the French, and with us the dab or sandling. Aris- 

 totle says in that passage, that it is in the habit of concealing itself in the 

 sand, while it moves to and fro the filaments around the mouth, and so 

 attracts the little fish. These filaments, Cuvier says, are small radii of the 

 anterior part of the dorsal fin, which form a sort of fringe around the mouth, 

 whence its French name of barbue. The turbot has no such filaments. 



95 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 20. As Hardouin remarks, Aris- 

 totle appears to assign the sixty days to the glaucus only. 



96 Naturalists have generally supposed, following Rondelet, Cuvier says, 

 that the ancient glaucus was one of the class of centronotal fishes, the 

 Scomber amia, or the Scomber glaucus of Linnaaus ; but that the in- 

 correctness of this notion is easily proved. Aristotle says, that in the glaucus 

 the appendices to the pylorus are few in number, as in the dorado (the 

 Sparus aurata of Linnaeus), while on the other hand the centronoti have 

 them in almost greater number than any other kind of fish. Athenaeus 

 says, B. iii., that the glaucus was a large fish, and Oppian, Hal. iii. 1. 193, 

 speaks of it as taken with mullet. Aristotle, B. ii. c. 13, says, that it 

 dwelt in deep water ; but, according to Oppian, Hal. i. 170, it sought its 

 food among rocks and in the sand ; in addition to which characteristics, 

 we find that it was a fish highly esteemed as a delicacy, the head being 

 the part more especially preferred. From all these circumstances, Cuvier 

 concludes that it was more probably a maigre, the Sciaena aquila of Cuvier, 

 than one of the centronotal fishes. 



97 Literally, the "little ass." Cuvier says, that nearly all the natural- 

 ists, following Rondelet, apply this name to the merlus, the Gadus rner- 

 luccius of Linnaeus, or else the genus of the gadus, or cod, in general. It 



