400 PLINY'S NATUEAL HISTORY. '[Book IX. 



CHAP. 29. THE SCAETJS, THE MUSTELA. 



At the present day, the first place is given to the scarus, 10 the 

 only fish that is said to ruminate, and to feed on grass and not 

 on other fish. It is mostly found in the Carpathian Sea, and 

 never of its own accord passes Lectum, 11 a promontory of Troas. 

 Optatus Elipertius, the commander of the fleet under the Em- 

 peror Claudius, had this fish brought from that locality, and 

 dispersed in various places off the coast between Ostia and the 



10 Cuvier says that this fish held, as Pliny here states, the very highest 

 place at the Roman tables, and was especially famous : First, because it 



k was supposed to ruminate; in allusion to which, Ovid says, Halieut. 1. 118, 

 " But, on the other hand, some fishes extend themselves on the sands 

 covered with weeds, as the scams, which fish alone ruminates the food it 

 has eaten." Secondly, because, as Aristotle, B. viii. c. 2, and JElian, B. i. 

 c. 2, inform us, it lived solely on vegetables. Thirdly, because it had the 

 faculty of producing a sound, as we learn from Opm' an, Halieut. B. i. 

 1. 134, and Suidas. Fourthly, for its salacious propensities, numbers being 

 taken by means of a female attached to a string, Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. 

 1. 78, and JElian, B. i. c. 2. Fifthly, for its remarkable sagacity in afford- 

 ing assistance to another, when taken in the net ; relative to which Ovid 

 has the following curious passage, Halieut. 1. 9, et seq. " The scarus is 

 caught by stratagem beneath the waves, and at length dreads the bait 

 fraught with treachery. It dares not strike the osiers with an effort of its 

 head ; but, turning away, as it loosens the twigs with frequent blows of its 

 tail, it makes its passage, and escapes safely into the deep. Moreover, if 

 perchance any kind scarus, swimming behind, sees it struggling within the 

 osiers, he takes hold of its tail in his mouth, as it is thus turned away, and 

 so it makes its escape." Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. 1. 40, and JElian, Hist. 

 Anim. B. i. c. 4, mention the same circumstance. We find that it was 

 highly esteemed by the Roman epicures, even in early times, it being men- 

 tioned by Ennius and Horace. It was salted with the intestines in it ; and 

 Martial, B. xiii. Ep. 84, seems to speak of it as not being good to eat with- 

 out them. It was a high-coloured fish, so much so, that Marcellus Sidetes 

 called it "floridum," while by Oppian it is called -rroiKikov, or "variegated." 

 Rondelet thinks that it was one of spari or the labri, while Belon describes 

 as such, a fish now unknown to zoologists, the tail of which, he says, has 

 projecting spines. Aldrovandus calls it by the name of Scarus Cretensis, a 

 species of the genus which at present goes by the name of Scarus, and which 

 is distinguished by osseous jaw-bones, resembling in shape the beak of a 

 parrot. Cuvier says, that on finding from Belon that the name cricdpoc was 

 still in use in the JEgean Sea, he ordered the various kinds of it to be 

 brought to Paris ; upon which he found that they exactly resembled the 

 Scarus Cretensis of Aldrovandus, and he consequently has no doubt that it 

 is essentially the same fish as the scarus of the Greeks and Romans. From 

 the resemblance above stated, it is not uncommonly called the "parrot- 

 fish ;" while by some it has been thought to have resembled our char. 



11 See B. v. cc. 32, 41. 



