RUMINATION OF THE SCARUS 155 



Kal (pvKia aXXa, the difference between which seems according 

 to Aristotle merely one of size. 



If a poll of writers on Fishing and of practical Pisciculturists 

 were taken to-day, a large majority would vote that sea-fish 

 do not eat seaweed, but feed on the larvcB, and other minute 

 insects in or on the various algcs or seaweeds. But against this 

 opinion is arrayed the authority of Darwin and Wallace, who 

 state that various species of Scams do browse, and do graze 

 on seaweed, and some of them exclusively on coral. ^ 



The Skaros (according to Aristotle) was the only fish which 

 seemed to ruminate, 2 whose food was seaweed, 3 and teeth, 

 set in deep saw-edged jaws, were not sharp and interlocking, 

 like those of all other fish, but resembled those of a parrot, as 

 its beak resembled that of a parrot. ^ 



From the seeming to ruminate of Aristotle we reach in later 

 writers like Oppian, I. 134 ff., and Ovid, Hal., 119, the positive 

 assertion that the scarus did ruminate. ^ 



Is it not possible, if a mere angler may hazard a suggestion 

 on scientific points, that the belief of modern writers and pisci- 

 culturists is not far out, and that while some of the Scari do 

 browse and graze exclusively on coral, and some sometimes 

 on seaweed, they do this to obtain as food only the minute 

 larvcB, which their so-called rumination helps them to separate 

 from the seaweed or coral ? ^ 



A second very practical argument against the reading 

 musco suggests itself. Let us allow that some sea fish do eat 

 not only algce but moss : even then, why should our Scarus 



1 Voyage of the Beagle, ch. 20: " Two species of fish of the genus scarus, 

 which are common here (Keeling Island), exclusively feed on coral." Sir R. 

 Owen, " The anterior teeth are soldered together and adapted to the habits 

 and exigences of a tribe of fishes which browse on the lithophytes, that clothe 

 the bottom of the sea, just as ruminant quadrupeds crop the herbage of the 

 dry land." 



2 N. H., II. 17 : ixdvos Ix^vs^oKet fi-npvKaiiiv. Cf., however, N. H., IX. 50. 



3 VIII. 2, 13. 



* Arist., N. H., II. 13. Phny, XI. 61. " Piscium omnibus (dentes) 

 serrati, praeter scarum : huic uni aquatilium plani." 



* In VII. 113, we again find Athenaeus misrepresenting Aristotle. 



6 " This idea of rumination," according to Mr. Lones, op. cit., p. 237, 

 " by the parrot wrasse (Scarus cretensis), which is clearly the Skaros of the 

 Ancients, probably arose from its grazing or cropping off marine plants, 

 and grinding them down, assisted by its having a strongly walled stomach " 

 (cf. the functions of the gizzard of a fowl) with which, out of the myriad.s of 



M 



