BOOK IX. xxxviTi. 74-xxxix. 77 



nor in rough water ; consequently they are chiefly 

 caught at the rising of the Pleiads," as the rivers 

 are then specially rough. They feed at night. 

 They are the only fish that do not float on the 

 surface when dead. There is a lake called Garda 

 in the territory of Verona through which flows the 

 river Mincio, at the outflow of which on a yearly 

 occasion, about the month of October, when the 

 lake is made rough evidently by the autimin star, 

 they are massed together by the waves and rolled 

 in such a marvellous shoal that masses of fish, a 

 thousand in each, are found in the receptacles 

 constructed in the river for the purpose. 



XXXIX. The lamprey spawns in any month, Habits ofihe 

 although all other fish have fixed breeding seasons. ^<^^v^y- 

 Its eggs grow very quickly. Lampreys are commonly 

 beheved to crawl out on to dry land and to be 

 impregnated by copulating witli snakes. Aristotle 

 gives the name of zmyrus^ to the male fish which 

 generates, and says that the difference is that the 

 lamprey is spotted and feeble whereas the zmyrus 

 is self-coloui-ed and hardy, and has teeth projecting 

 outside the mouth. In Northern Gaul all lampreys 

 have seven spots on the right jaw arranged Hke the 

 constellation of the Great Bear, which are of a 

 bright golden colour as long as the fish are aUve, 

 and are extinguished when they are deprived of 

 Hfe. Vedius PolHo, Knight of Rome, a member of 

 the Privy Council under the late lamented Augustus, 

 found in this animal a means of displaying his 

 cruelty when he threw slaves sentenced to death 

 into ponds of lampreys — not that the wild animals 

 on land were not sufiicient for this purpose, but 

 because with any other kind of creature he was 



VOL. III. H ^^3 



