200 Rev. W. Houghton on the Silurus 



viz, that if he himself consents no longer to dispute the identity 

 of the glanis and silurus, Cardan on his side must forbear to 

 teach or listen to others who would make him believe that the 

 silui-us was the sturgeon. ' Itaque/ says he (laying down the 

 conditions) , ' silurus sane esto qui et glanis, modo ne glanim 

 quis dicatsturionem.'" (Prose Halieutics, p. 305, note; see also 

 Scaliger, Exerc. ad Card. 218. n. 3.) 



Let us note what classical writers have written as to the 

 silurus and glanis. 



Aristotle, in his ' History of Animals,' does not once mention 

 the silm'us hj name ; but speaks of a fish called glanis, which 

 he says has a tail like a cordylus (newt), that it produces its 

 ova in a mass {(Tvve')(e<i acjudcn to Kvrjfia) like perch and frogs, 

 that large individuals deposit them in deep water, but the 

 smaller ones in shallow water near the roots of willows amongst 

 weeds and aquatic plants, that the male glanis is very careful 

 of the young fry and continues to watch by the eggs and 

 young for forty or fifty days to protect them from other fish, 

 that the ova of the glanis are as large as the seed of the orobus, 

 that it has four branchiffi on each side, all divided except the 

 last, that the female glanis is better to eat than the male (an 

 exception, Aristotle thinks, to fish in general in this respect), 

 that this fish, from swimming near the surface, is sometimes 

 star-struck and stupified by thunder, that, if it has ever 

 once swallowed a hook, it will bite and destroy the hook with 

 its hard teeth. This is, I believe, all that the Stagirite has 

 written about the glanis ; and with the exception perhaps of 

 the male of this fish guarding its eggs and young fry, there is 

 hardly any thing left by means of which the glanis can be 

 identified. Aristotle nowhere speaks of the great size to which 

 the sheatfish grows, though he mentions large and small in- 

 dividuals ; again, the glanis is represented as swimming near 

 the surface, whereas the sheatfish, like the Siluridi^ generally, 

 inhabits the bottom of the water. 



^lian appears to consider the glanis and silurus distinct 

 species of the same family. He speaks of the glanis as being 

 found in the IMaander (Mendere) and Lycus (Tchoiiik-Su), 

 rivers of Asia (Minor), also in EurojDe in the Strymon (Struma 

 or Carasou), and says it resembles the silurus. He mentions 

 the fondness of the male for its eggs, but here, perhaps, is only 

 quoting Aristotle. 



Of the silurus, however, ^lian gives us some interesting 

 and definite information. He tells us that "in the Egyptian 

 city of Bubastis there is a pond in which are preserved a great 

 number of siluri, which are quite tame and gentle ; the people 

 throw them pieces of bread ; and the fish jump about one before 



