Chap. 17.] ' FISHES. 383 



attilus^ of the Fadus, ■which, naturally of an inactive nature, 

 sometimes grows so fat as to weigh a thousand pounds, and 

 ■when taken with a hook, attached to a chain, requires a yoke 

 of oxen to draw if^ on land. An extremely small fish, which 

 is known as the clupea,'* attaches itself, with a wonderful 

 tenacity, to a certain vein in the throat of the attilus, and de- 

 stroys it by its bite. The silurus carries devastation with it 

 wherever it goes, attacks every living creature, and often drags 

 beneath the water horses as they swim. It is also remark- 



tUs name, -vrhicli is only found here and once in Hesychius, 'who calls it 

 KijT(iSrie, " of the large kind." Eondelet, in his account of river fish, 

 suggests that " exos " is the proper reading, and that under this name is 

 meant a species of sturgeon. Gesner asks if it might not possibly have 

 been the "brochet;" but, as Cuyier says, that fish was well-known to 

 the Romans under the name of "luoius" [our pike], and it is not suffi- 

 ciently large for Pliny to compare it to the we& or the attilus, and for 

 Hesychius to have enumerated it among the "large" fishes. It is in 

 accordance, however, with this suggestion of Gesner that the pike genua 

 bears the name of " esox " in modem Natural History, 



" Cuvier says that there are found in the river Padus, or Po, several ' 

 species of very large sturgeons, and that there is one of these which still 

 bears the name, according to Salvian and Bondelet, of adeUo and adilo. 

 Aldrovandus, he says, calls it adelo or ladauo. This Cuvier takes to be the 

 attilus of Pliny. But, according to Bezzonico, Faulus Jovius denies that 

 the attilus or adelus of the people of Ferrara is of the sturgeon genus ; 

 but says that it is so much larger than the sturgeon, and so different in 

 shape, flavour, value, and natural habits, that the names of these two 

 fishes were used proverbially by thd people, when they were desirous to 

 signify two objects of totally different nature. Eezzonioo remarks, that 

 the name given to it in Ferrara was properly " I'adano," which became 

 corrupted into " ladano," and expresses it as his opinion that it was the 

 same with the esox of the Rhine. He also states, that,irom the exceeding 

 whiteness of the flesh, the ladano was called by the fishermen, itwione 

 bianco. 



25 Rezzonico says that this may possibly have happened in Pliny's day, 

 but that in modern times no attilus or ladano is found weighing more 

 than 500 pounds. He says that this fish may, in comparison with the 

 sturgeon, be aptly caUcd an inert fish ; for while the sturgeon makes the 

 greatest possible resistance to the fishermen, the other is taken with the 

 greatest ease. 



™ Cuvier says, that this was probably the Petromyzon branchialia of 

 Linnseus, the lampiUon, a little fish resembling a worm, which adheres to 

 the giUs of other fish, and sucks the blood. The same name was also 

 given to the Clupea alosa of Linnaeus, our " shad ;" indeed Linnseus gave 

 this name to the whole herring and pilc^hard genus, erroneoTisly classing 

 them with the shad. 



