8 PLINY'S NATUUA.L nisTOiir. . [Book XXXII. 



CHAP. 6. 31AIIVELLOUS PROPERTIES BELONGING TO CERTAIN 



FISIIES. 



Trebius Xiger informs us that whenever the loligo" is seen 

 darting above the surface of the water, it portends a changtr 

 of weather : that the xiphias, 43 or, in other words, the sword- 

 ti-L, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce 

 the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom : instances of 

 which have been known near a place in Mauritania, known as 

 Co! to, not fur from the river Lixus. w He says, too, that the 

 loligo sometimes darts above the surface, in such vast numbers, 

 as to sink the ships upon which they fall. 



CHAP. 7. PLACES WIIKUE FISH EAT FliOM THE IT AND. 



At many of the country-seats belonging to the Emperor tho 

 fi?h eat 51 from the hand : 'but the stones of this nature, told 

 with such admiration by the ancients, bear refen.-nco to lakes 

 i-.r;ned by Mature, and not to fish-preserves; that at Elorus, a 

 fortified place in Sicily, for instance, not far from Syracuse. 

 In the fountain, too, of Jupiter, at Labranda, 52 there are eels 

 which eat from the hand, and wear car-rings, 53 it is said. The 

 same, too, at Chios, near the Old Men's Tempta 54 there; and 

 at tho Fountain of Cliabura in Mesopotamia, already men- 

 tioned." 



CHAP. 8. PLACES WIIKUE FISH KECOONIZE THE HUMAN VOICK. 



OKACULAU KESPON8KS GIVEN II Y FISH. 



At Myra, too, in Lycia, the fish in the Fountain of Apollo, 

 4 * See 15. ix. cc. 44, 45, and I*, xviii. c. 87. 



** Si-e I), ix. cc. 1, 21 ami c. 53 of the present Book. There arc two. va- 

 rieties of it, the Xiphius gladius of JBloch and Lacepede, and tho 

 Xiphias rnacluTra of Shaw. 

 1 See B. v. c. 1. 



: Martial, B. iv. En. 30, speaks of this being the case nt the fish- 

 ponds of Bainc, vrherc the Emperor's fish were in tho habit of making 

 their appearance when called by name. 



A village of Caria, celebrated for its sanctuary of Zeus Stratios. 

 JElian, Hist. Anim. B. xii. c. 30, says that there was a spring of clear 

 water, within the sanctuary, which contained fish with golden necklaces and 

 ri:,.'?. 



^ "Inaures." lie probably means ornaments suspended from the 

 gills, a thing which, in the case of eels, might be done. 



i; 44 Stimm delubrum." ./Elian tpeaks of tame fUh in the Old Men's 

 Harbour (Xt^//v) at Chios. 



" In B. xxxi. c. 22. 



