124 History of Nature. [BooK IX. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Of Fishes 1 that are without Hair, how they breed; and how 

 many Sorts of them. 



OF the Creatures that want Hair, two only bring forth 

 their Young alive : the Dolphin and the Viper. Of Fishes 

 there are seventy-four Kinds ; besides those that are covered 

 with Crusts, of which there are thirty Sorts. Of every one in 

 particular we will speak elsewhere : but now we are to treat 

 of the Nature of the principal. 



CHAPTER XV. 

 Of the Names and Natures of many Fishes. 



THE Tunnies'' are exceeding large Fishes: we have found 

 some to have weighed fifteen Talents, and the breadth of the 

 Tail to be two Cubits and a Span. In some Rivers, also, there 

 are Fish scarcely of less size : as the Silurus 3 in the Nile ; the 

 Esox 4 in the Rhine; the Attilus 5 in the Po; which groweth so 



1 The reader may consult a note in the Wernerian edition of Kay's 

 " Wisdom of God in Creation," p. 9 ; where, however, there is only an 

 approximation to the real number : to which should be added, that the 

 fossil species of animals and vegetables, already classified, amounted, in 

 1846, to about 10,000. Wern. Club. 



2 Scomber ihynnus. LINN. Thynnus vulgaris. Cuv. See, con- 

 cerning this fish, B. xxxii. c. 1 1. The Ancients were not at all particular 

 in the discrimination of species ; and, therefore, what were formerly sup- 

 posed to be the different stages of growth of the Tunny, are now known 

 as different species. In confirmation of the enormous size to which the 

 Tunny sometimes attains, Ruysch records an instance of one taken near 

 Cadiz that was thirty-two feet in length. The preparation of Tunny 

 (Athenseus says, of the larger sort) is referred to by Martial (B. iii. 

 Ep. 60) as high and rank food : " Teque juvant gerres, et pelle melandrya 

 cana." Wern. Club. 



3 Silurus glanis. Cuv. and LINN. Silurus and Glanis are sometimes 

 regarded by the Ancients as synonymous, sometimes as distinct. The 

 Shilbe is also a fish of the Nile, of the same family. The voracity of the 

 Silurus Glanis gave rise to a proverb : " Piscem pisci prcedam csse^ at 

 Siluro omnes : " Every fish preys on some other one, but the Silurus on 

 all. Wormius. Wern. Club. 



4 Esox lucius. LJNN. Pike. Wern. Club. 



4 Accipemeo huso. Liny. Erroneously supposed to be peculiar to 

 the Po. Wern. Club. 



