BOOK IX.] History of Nature. 177 



the white, which came from the Parts about Reat, should 

 be kept by themselves : as also the Illyrian, which are 

 remarkable for size: and the African, which are the most 

 fruitful; and the Solitanae, which are the renowned. Nay, 

 he had a Contrivance to feed them with boiled Wine and 

 Wheat Meal, and other similar Things ; to the End that 

 Riot might be served plentifully with home-fed Snails. And 

 the Glory of this Art produced them at last of such Bigness, 

 that one of their Shells would contain fourscore (Measures 

 called) Quadrants, 1 according to M. Varro. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

 Of Land-fishes. 



THEOPHRASTUS also telleth strange Wonders of some 

 kinds of Fishes : that about Babylon there are Places subject 

 to the Inundations of the Rivers, and in which the Water 

 standeth in Pits, and the Fish remain after the Waters 

 are returned within their Banks ; and that some of these 

 Fishes quit those Retreats to seek for Food, walking with 

 their Fins, and wagging their Tails as they go. And if any 

 pursue them they retreat into their Pits, and when in them, 

 stand opposed to them : that their Heads are like those of 

 the Rana marina, but the other Parts like the Gobius ; and 

 the Gills as in other Fishes. Also that about Heraclea and 

 Cromna, and the River Lycus, and in many Parts of Pontus, 

 there is one Kind that haunteth the utmost edges of the 

 Rivers, and maketh itself Holes in the Land, and liveth in 

 them, even when the Shore is dry, and the Rivers are 

 gathered into narrow Channels. Therefore they are digged 

 out; and that they are alive appears finally by the Motion of 

 their Bodies. Near the abovesaid Heraclea and the River 

 Lycus, when the Water is ebbed, there are Fishes bred from 

 the Eggs left in the Mud ; and these, in seeking their Food, 



1 Three wine gallons and three quarts : for a Quadrans is three Cyathi, 

 i. e. the fourth part of a Sextarius, and a Sextarius is a wine pint and a half, 

 or eighteen ounces. 



By quoting an author, Pliny sufficiently testifies that he had never 

 seen a shell of a snail (Calix) of such size. Wern. Club. 



VOL. III. N 



