BOOK IX. Lxvii. 143-LXV111. 146 



any fish that have received a shoek while svvim- 

 ming oarelessly above her. No tender morsel is 

 preferred to the hver of this fish. The sea-frog 

 called the angler-fish is equally cunning : it stirs up 

 the mud and puts out the Httle horns that project 

 under its eyes, drawing them back when httle fishes 

 frisk towards them till they come near enough for it 

 to spring upon them. In a similar manner the skate 

 and the turbot while in hiding put out their fins and 

 wave them about to look hke worms, and so also do 

 the fish called rays. For the sting-ray acts as a 

 freebooter, from its hiding place transfixing fish 

 passing by with its sting, which is its weapon ; there 

 are proofs of this cunning, because these fish, though 

 the slowest there are, are found with mullet, the 

 swiftest of all fish, in their belly. 



The scolopendra,'^ which resembles the land animal f'^j^"''""" 

 called the centipede, when it has swallowed a hook 

 vomits up the whole of its inwards until it succeeds in 

 disgorging it, and then sucks them back again. Sea- 

 foxes * on the other hand in a similar emergency gulp 

 down more of the hne till they reach its weak part 

 where they may easily gnaw it ofF. The fish called the 

 catfish more cautiously nibbles at hooks from behind 

 and strips them of the bait without swallowing them. 



The sea-ram « goes around hke a brigand, and now 

 hides in the shadow of the larger vessels riding at 

 anchor and waits in case somebody may be tempted 

 by the pleasure of a swim, now raises its head out of 

 the water and watches for fishermen's boats, and 

 secretly swimming up to them sinks them. 



LXVIII. For my own part I hold the view that J^^*/*"- 

 even those creatures which have not got the nature 

 of either animals or plants, but some third nature 



261 



