HALIEUTICA, II. 71-86 



loins is paralysed and falls even so into the deep sleep 

 of weakness, fettered by helplessness. And the 

 Cramp-fish, albeit not swift, speedily leaps up in joy 

 and devours the living fish as if it were dead. Many 

 times also when it meets viith fishes swimming in the 

 gulf of the sea, it quenches ■with its touch their swift 

 career for all their haste and checks them in mid 

 course. And they stay, blasted and helpless, think- 

 ing not, poor wretches, either of going on or of flight. 

 But the Cramp-fish stays by and devours them, while 

 they make no defence nor are conscious of their fate. 

 Even as in the darkUng phantoms of a dream,*' when 

 a man is terrified and fain to flee, his heart leaps, but, 

 struggle as he may, a steadfast bond as it were weighs 

 down his eager knees : even such a fetter doth the 

 Cramp-fish de\ise for fishes. 



The Fishing-frog *• again is Ukewise a sluggish and 



ranae; Cicero X.D. ii. 125 Ranae autem marinae dicuntur 

 obruere sese arena solere et moveri prope aquani : ad quas 

 quasi ad escam pisces cum accesserint confici a ranis atque 

 consurai. " The first dorsal ray, inserted on the snout, is 

 very long, movable in every direction, and terminates in a 

 dermal flap, which is supposed to be used by the ' Angler ' 

 as a bait, attracting other fishes, which are soon ingulfed 

 in the enormous gape" C.N.H. vii. p. 718; Aristotle, 

 classifying it as a Selachian and holding all Selachians to 

 be viviparous, notes the ^irpaxoi as the one exception (A. 

 505 b 3 TO. 5i (TfXdxv ravTa fiporoKa tXtjv ^arpaxov : cf. 

 56+ b 18, etc., I>e gen. 749 a 23). In De gen. 75i a 26 he 

 gives as the reason for this the immense size of its head — 

 xoWaTXaffiaj' toO XoitoO o■u)^taros K.a.1 Tai'-rrjv aKavOivOTj Kai 

 ff<p6Spa Tpaxeio-v. Siorep ot'5' vffrepov eiVSe'xfToi toi)s v(ottovs 

 oi'S' ef apxv^ fojorofcei. " II y avait une bien meilleure reponse 

 a faire, c'est que la baudroie n'est pas un cartilagineux et 

 d'ailleurs il s'en faut beaucoup que les autres cartilagineux 

 soient tous vivipares ; eufin, ni les poissons cartilagineux ni 

 les autres ne font rentrer leurs petits dans leur corps " 

 Cuvier, xii. p. 363. 



V 289 



