OR ANIMALS WITH BLOOD. 237 



expressed that these fishes were the same as Aristotle's 

 Skaros and nearly the same as Aldrovandi's Scarus Cretensis* 

 This belief was strengthened by a description of the Skaros 

 of Crete, given by M. Le Mesle, in command of the 

 ' Cuirassier,' on which the fishes examined by Cuvier were 

 taken to Toulon. The value of this description is greater, 

 because it was made without regard for what the Ancients said 

 of their Skaros. According to M. Le Mesle, it is called Skaro 

 from its leaping mode of progression, it plays about among 

 rocks in the midst of seaweeds and other plants on which it 

 feeds, it can be caught only after some experience, being very 

 difficult to take with the line, its flavour is excellent, and 

 the Turks call it " red fish " or " blue fish," according to its 

 play of colours.! Cuvier was also informed by M. Pouque- 

 ville that the Greeks made a sauce from the liver and 

 intestines of the Skaro, I a statement which explains to some 

 extent the passage already given from Martial. 



With respect to the so-called ruminating habits of Skaros, 

 there seems to be a misunderstanding. Aristotle says that 

 it appears to ruminate, and it is only some later writers, like 

 Oppian and Pliny, who assert that it ruminates. The idea 

 of rumination by the parrot-wrasse (Scariis Cretensis), which 

 is clearly the Skaros of the Ancients, probably arose from 

 its grazing or cropping off marine plants and grinding them 

 down by a process lasting some time. It may be mentioned 

 that Darwin, Wallace, and others who describe the feeding 

 habits of various species of Scams, many of which feed on 

 corals, employ the words " browsing " and " grazing." 



A large number of species of reptiles and amphibians 

 exists in Greece. Thirty-one species were recorded in 1832 

 by the members of the French Scientific Expedition to the 

 Morea. Aristotle describes or mentions not less than fifteen; 

 he also describes a few not found in Greece. 



His Ghelone included Testudo grceca and T. marginata, 

 two common land-tortoises of Greece, and also Thalassochelys 

 caretta, the loggerhead of the Mediterranean; this he calls 

 Ghelone thalattia. His description of the habits of this 

 turtle is not quite accurate, but he knew that it leaves the 

 water to deposit its eggs, burying them in the earth, § and 

 that it has powerful jaws enabling it to crunch the shells of 

 molluscs. II 



■■■ Hist. Nat. des Poiss. xiv. pp. 148-9. f Op. cit. pp. 149-150. 

 \ Op. cit. p. 151. I H.A. V. c. 27, s. 1. 



II Ibid. viii. c. 3, s. 4. 



