174 History of Nature. [BooK IX. 



after they are produced the Womb uniteth again : a Thing 

 usual (as they say) in Blind Serpents. The Mus marinus 1 

 diggeth a Furrow within the Ground, and there layeth her 

 Eggs, which she covereth with Earth ; and so lets them 

 alone for thirty Days, when she openeth the Place again, 

 and leadeth her Young to the Water. 



CHAPTER LII. 

 Of Fishes' Wombs. 



THE Erythrini and Change have Wombs. The Fish 

 which in Greek is called Trochos 2 is thought to get itself with 

 Young. The Young of all Creatures of the Water, at first, 

 are without Sight. 



CHAPTER LIII. 

 Of the exceeding long Life of Fishes. 



IT is not long since that we heard of one memorable 

 Example, which proved the long Life of Fishes. Pausi- 

 lippum is a Country-seat in Campania, not far from Naples ; 

 where (as Anneus Seneca writeth) there died a Fish in the 

 Fish-ponds of C&sar, threescore Years 3 after it had been put 



1 Aristotle gives the name of Mus, or the Mouse, to a freshwater 

 turtle ; some of which, of small size, are as active in the water as a mouse 

 on land. It is probable, therefore, that the Mus marinus is a small Sea- 

 turtle ; and the mice of the Nile (Ch. Iviii.), of the same natural family. 

 Seep. 136. Wern. Club. 



2 Turbinated Shell-fish are hermaphrodite ; but it is believed that in 

 these, as in the others, self- impregnation is not possible. Wern. Club. 



3 But what is this in comparison with a tike, of which Gesner gives 

 the following account ? " In the year of our Lord 1497, a Pike was caught 

 in a pond near Haylprun, an imperial city of Suevia, and fixed to the 

 skin of its gillcovers was a brass ring, of which we give the figure and 

 inscription : with the interpretation, as it was deciphered by John Dal- 

 burgus, bishop of Uvormaciensis : ' I am the first fish which, before all 

 others, was placed in this pond by the hand of the Governor of the World, 

 Frederic the Second, on the 5th day of October, (A.D.) 1230:' from 

 whence it was concluded that the fish had already lived 267 years ; and if 

 not caught, it appeared likely to have survived much longer." GESNER'S 

 "Nomenclator," &c. p. 316. Wern. Club. 



