234 NATURAL HISTORY. 



taken the place of 'Ao-Tra'xa^ the former name of the mole, and the 

 hedge-hog is no longer called ex^vo;, but o-jcai/n^J^oipoc. 



We have mentioned that in his various researches, Dr. Sibthorp 

 did not omit collecting information respecting the fishes of the Greek 

 seas ; and his list of them is more complete than any that has been 

 hitherto published. Among the lost works of the ancients, we may 

 regret the want of those, which expressly treated of the fishes of the 

 rivers and seas of Greece, as they would have illustrated in some 

 degree an interesting part of the natural history of that country. 

 The Greeks were of all people oil/otpxyta-Txroi* ; the snipe, the wood- 

 cock, the partridge held a secondary place at their tables. Ce me- 

 prisement, says Belon, de manger chair, et estimcr te poisson, a fait 

 que Ics anciens Grecs et Latins, ayent mains cogneu les oiseaux, que 

 les poisson-s. The names of some writers, who in parts of their works 

 had examined the various sorts of fishes which frequent the rivers 

 and shores of Greece have been preserved to us ; among these we 

 find Epicharmus the Sicilian, a poet and naturalist ; Ananius a con- 

 temporary of Hipponax, who had in his verses introduced some 

 remarks on O^oTrotia.; Mithoecus mentioned in the Gorgias of Plato, 

 and Archestratus, a writer who flourished nearly at the same time with 

 Aristotle, and from whom the latter had probably borrowed some 

 of those remarks respecting fishes, which are to be found in his 

 great work, f Of the numerous treatises on natural history written 

 by Aristotle, a small part only has reached us. Athenasus quotes 

 one entitled TrepI Zcoui/, ^ Tttp) lyjuav.\ Schw. ad. Ath. vii. 15. 



From the Venetians, French, and Italians who have been settled 

 at various times in parts of Greece, and the islands of the Archipelago, 



* Qui Graece sciunt iiunquam niirabuntiir ovj/ov pro j^isce dici. Quare hodieque in 

 Grsecia piscis vocatiir ■^ct^i, voce ex 6^1/apiov dcpravata. See Yvonis Viliiomari in locos 

 controversos Ilobeiti Titii. 89. (A work written by Joseph Scaliger.) 



f See Schneider in Aris. H. A. Epimetrum, 1. 



J The description of the Bustard from Aristotle, (in Athcn. lib. 9.) is in no part of the 

 extant writings of the piiilosopher ; and in anotiier book (lib. 70 Athenaeus refers to a 

 passage of Aristotle, respecting the fleshy palate of the carp; this is not now to be found 

 in his works. — Sec Bcckmann's History of the Invent. 3. 



