30S BRITISH ENTOMOSTRACA. 



the assertion almost in the words of Aristotle.* Oppianus, 

 in his poem ' Alieuticon,' describes the sufferings of the 

 poor tunny and sword-fish in moving language, and 

 asserts that the fish are frequently killed by their pigmy 

 assailants. t Athenseus repeats wliat his predecessors have 

 written before him ; and Salvianus, in his ' Aquatilium 

 Animalium Historia,' 1554, quotes at length the passages 

 bearing upon the subject from Aristotle, Pliny, Oppianus, 

 and Athenseus. j Rondeletius, in his 'Libri de Piscibus 

 marinis/ 1554, repeats, for the sixth time, Aristotle's and 

 Pliny's accounts of this parasite of the tunny and sword- 

 fish, and to prove his jjersonal knowledge of the little 

 animal in question, gives a figure of a tunny, with the 

 parasite attached, near the pectoral fin.§ He says it ad- 

 heres so tenaciously, that it cannot be shook off by any 

 agitation of the body of its host. 



Conrad Gesner, in his 'Historia Animalium — De Aqua- 

 tilibus,' 1558, enters largely into the history of this para- 

 site. He describes its structure and appearance, " be- 

 cause," he says, " few people know what this parasite is, as 

 it is very small, seldom to be seen, except at the time of 

 the rising of the dog-star, and then not on many fishes, 

 but only on the tunny, sword-fish, and occasionally the 



* "Animal est parvum, scorpionis cfEgie, araiiei magnitudine. Hoc se, 

 et thynuo, et ei qui glaclius vocatur, crebro delpliiui magnitudinc excedeuti, 

 sub pinua affigit aculeo, tantique infestat dolore, ut. in naves ssepenumero 

 exiliant. Quod et alias faciunt aliorum vim timentes, mugiles maxime, tam 

 prsecipuse velocitatis, ut transversa navigia interim superjactent." — Hist. 

 Nat., lib. ix, cap. IG. 



■f " Dum canis ardenti turbatur sydere ca;lum 



Et tliyuni et gladii diro vexantur asilo : 

 Q,ui fixus madidis illos contundit in alls, 

 Non arcere queunt, non banc propellcre pestem, 

 Incutit hoc celeres vires, stimulosque feroces 

 Concitat ; armantur rabie, furuentque dolore : 

 Invitosque agitat pestis furibunda uatantes : 

 Exliorret vulnus, baccliantur in aquore lata. 

 Hi torti stimulis incursant navibus altis : 

 Et S8epe in terram saliunt e gurgite vasto. 

 In tanto volvunt luctautu membra dolore, 

 Et vitam in tanto mutant cum niorte furore." 



Alieuticon, traduct. Laurent. Lippio, liler xi, p. 24, 

 + Pp. 126-8. § P. 249. 



