B. V.] THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 109 



of the setting of the Pleiades. The young are, however, better 

 in the autumn. At each breeding season it produces seven or 

 eight. Some of the galei, as the asterias, seem to produce 

 their ova twice every month. This arises from all the ova 

 not being perfected at once. 



4. Some fish produce ova at all seasons of the year, as the 

 muraena: for this fish produces many ova, and the fry 

 rapidly increase in size, as do those also of the hippurus, 1 for 

 these, from being very small, rapidly increase to a great 

 size ; but the muraena produces young at all seasons, the 

 hippurus in the spring. The smyrus differs from the mu- 

 rsena, for the mura3na is throughout variegated and weak. 

 The smyrus is of one colour, and strong ; its colour is that 

 of the pine tree, and it has teeth both internally and ex- 

 ternally. They say that these are the male and the female, 

 as in others. These creatures go upon the land, and are 

 often taken. 



5. The growth of all fish is rapid, and not the least so in 

 the coracinus among small fish. It breeds near the land, 

 in thick places full of seaweed. The orphos also grows 

 rapidly. The pelamis and thynnus breed in Pontus, and 

 nowhere else. The cestreus, chrysophrys, and labrax, breed 

 near the mouths of rivers. The orcynes and scorpides, and 

 many other kinds,, in the sea. 



6. Most fish breed in March, April, and May ; a few 

 in the autumn, as the salpe, sargus, and all the others of 

 this kind a little before the autumnal equinox; and the 

 narce and rhine also. Some breed in the winter and summer, 

 as I before observed, as the labrax, cestreus, and belona in 

 the winter ; the thynnis in June, about the summer sol- 

 stice : it produces, as it were, a bag, containing many 

 minute ova. The rhyas also breeds in the summer. The 

 chelones among the cestraei begin to breed in the month of 

 December, and so does the sargus, the myxon, as it is 

 called, and the cephalus. They go with young thirty 

 days. Some of the cestrei do not originate in coition, but 

 are produced from mud and sand. 



7. The greater number of them contain ova in the 

 spring, but some, as I observed, in the summer, autumn, 

 and winter. But this does not take place in all alike, 



1 Coryphee na hippurus. 



