464 PLINY'S FATUBAL HISTOET. Book IX. 



the animal discharges an impregnating liquid, 90 which has the 

 appearance of milk. Eels, again, rub themselves against rocks, 

 upon which, the particles 91 which they thus scrape from off their 

 bodies come to life, such being their only means of reproduction. 

 The various kinds of fishes do not couple out of their own kind, 

 with the exception of the squatina and the ray. 92 The fish 

 that is produced from the union of these two, resembles a ray 

 in the fore part, and bears a name among the Greeks com- 

 pounded of the two. 93 



Certain animals are produced only at certain seasons of the 

 year, both in water and on the land, such, for instance, as scal- 

 lops, snails, and leeches, in the spring, which also disappear at 

 stated periods. Among fishes, the wolf-fish 94 and the trichias 95 

 bring forth twice in the year, as also do all kinds of rock-fish ; 

 the mullet and the chalcis 96 thrice in the year, the cyprinus 97 

 six times, the seorpsena 98 twice, and the sargus in spring and 

 autumn. Among the flat-fish, the squatina brings forth twice 



90 Cuvier says, that at the time of the oyster spawning, its body appears 

 swollen in some parts with a milky fluid, which is not improbably the fe- 

 cundating fluid. During this season the oyster is generally looked" upon as 

 unfit for food ; among us, from the beginning of May to the end of July. 



91 This, Cuvier remarks, is a mere vague hypothesis, as to the repro- 

 duction of the eel, without the slightest foundation. Pliny borrows it 

 from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 9. 



92 The squatina and the ray do not interbreed, Cuvier observes, any 

 more than other fish ; and the Squatina raia, or rhinobatis, (which was 

 said to be their joint production), is a particular species, more flat in form 

 than the squalus, and longer than the ray. 



93 'Pivo/Sarog, " the squatinoraia." 



94 " Lupus." The Perca labrax of Linnaeus ; see c. 28 of the present 

 Book. 



95 The sardine. See c. 20 of the present Book. 



96 See c. 71 of the present Book. 



97 This name, Cuvier says, appears so rarely in the ancient writers, that 

 it is difficult to ascertain its exact signification. The moderns, he says, 

 have pretty generally agreed to give it to the carp, but without any good 

 and sufficient foundation. It was a lake or river fish, which, as Aristotle 

 says, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 14, deposited its eggs five or six times in the 

 year, and which had a palate so fleshy, that it might almost be mistaken 

 for a tongue, B. iv. c. 8, characteristics that appear well suited to the carp. 

 But then, on the other hand, Oppian mentions it, Halieut. B. i., as a shore 

 fish, implying apparently that it belonged to the sea ; and Pliny himself, 

 in c. 25 of the present Book, does the same, by his words, " hoc et in mari 

 accidere cyprino." The words " in mari," however, he has added, of his 

 own accord, to the account which he has derived from Aristotle. 



98 The fish called the sea-scorpion. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 11. 



