228 ZOOLOGY. [Part II 



become vivified at the change of the season.^ Herodotus had 

 previously hazarded a similar theory to account for the sudden 

 appearance of fry in the Egyptian marshes on the rising of 

 the Nile; but the cases are not parallel. Theophrastus, the 

 friend and pupil of Aristotle, gave importance to the subject by 

 devoting to it his essay Ilspl ti)s rwv l^Ovwv sv t,r)pu> Bt,afxov'r]s, 

 De Piscibus in sicco degentibus. In this, after adverting to the 

 fish called exocoetus, from its habit of going on shore to sleep, 

 d-rro rrjs KOirrjs, he instances the small fish il-^Ovhia), which leave 

 the rivers of India to wander like frogs on the land; and 

 likewise a species found near Babylon, which, when the 

 Euphrates runs low, leave the dry channels in search of food, 

 " moving themselves along by means of their fins and tail." He 

 proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are places in 

 which fish are dug out of the earth, opuKTOL rwv l-^Ovtov, and he 

 accounts for their being found under such circumstances by the 

 subsidence of the rivers, " when the water being evaporated the 

 fish gradually descend beneath the soil in search of moisture ; 

 and the surface becoming hard they are preserved in the damp 

 clay below it, in a state of torpor, but are capable of vigorous 

 movements when disturbed. In this manner, too," Theophrastus 

 adds, "the buried fish propagate, leaving behind them their 

 spawn, which becomes vivified on the return of the waters to 

 their accustomed bed." This work of Theophrastus became the 

 great authority for all subsequent writers on this question. 

 Athen^us quotes it'-^, and adds the further testimony of Polybius, 

 that in Grallia Narbonensis fish are similarly dug out of the 

 ground.^ Strabo repeats the story ^, and one and all the 

 Greek naturalists received the statement as founded on reliable 

 authority. 



Not so the Eomans. Livy mentions it as one of the prodigies 

 which were to be "expiated^" on the approach of a rupture with 

 Macedon, that "in Grallico agro qua induceretur aratrum sub 

 glebis pisces emersisse," •'' thus taking it out of the category of 

 natural occurrences. Pomponius Mela, obliged to notice the 

 matter in his account of Narbon Graul, accompanies it with the 

 intimation that although asserted by both Grreek and Roman 



' Lib. vi. cli. 15, 16, 17. 

 ^ Lib. viii. ch. 2. 

 3 lb. ch. 4. 



Lib. iv. and xii. 

 Lib. xlii. ch. 2. 



