BOOK IX. VIII. 27-ix. 30 



cause of his death did not return out to sea and 

 expired on dry land. Theophrastus records that 

 exactly the same thing occurred at Naupactus too. 

 Indeed there are unhmited instances : the people of 

 Amphilochus and Taranto tell the same stories about 

 boys and dolphins ; and these make it credible that 

 also the skilled harpcr Arion, when at sea the sailors 

 were getting ready to kill him with the intention of 

 steahng the money he had made, succeeded in 

 coaxing them to let him first play a tune on his harp, 

 and the music attracted a school of dolphins, where- 

 upon he dived into the sea and was taken up by one of 

 them and carried ashore at Cape Matapan. 



IX. In the region of Nismes in the Province of DoipMns 

 Narbonne there is a marsh named Latera where fishemum. 

 dolphins catch fish in partnership with a human 

 fisherman. At a regular season a countless shoal of 

 mullet rushes out of the narrow mouth of the marsh 

 into the sea, after watching for the turn of the tide, 

 which makes it impossible for nets to be spread across 

 the channel — indeed the nets would be equally 

 incapable of standing the mass of the weight even if 

 the craft of the fish did not watch for the opportunity. 

 For a similar reason they make straight out into the 

 deep water produced by the neighbouring eddies, 

 and hasten to escape from the only place suitable for 

 setting nets. When this is observed by the fisher- 

 men — and a crowd collects at the place, as they know 

 the time, and even more because of their keenness 

 for this sport — and when the entire population from 

 the shore shouts as loud as it can, calhng for ' Snub- 

 nose ' for the denouement of the show, the dolphins 

 quickly hear their wishes if a northerly breeze carries 

 the shout out to sea, though if the wind is in the 



183 



