4lO PLIinr'S If ATTTEAIi HISTORY. [Book iX. 



fishes spawn only at stated periods : the eggs of this fish 

 increase with the greatest rapidity." It is a vulgar" belief 

 that the mursena comes on shore, and is there impregnated 

 by intercourse with serpents. Aristotle" calls the male, 

 which impregnates the female, by the name of "zmyrus;" 

 and says that there is a difference between them, the mursena 

 being spotted" and weakly, while the zmyrus is all of one 

 colour and hardy, and has teeth which project beyond the 

 mouth. In northern Gaul all the mursenae have on the 

 right jaw seven spots,** which bear a resemblance to the con- 

 stellation of the Septentriones,*' and are of a gold colour, 

 shining as long as the animal is alive, but disappearing as soon 

 as it is dead. Vedius PoUio,*^ a Koman of equestrian rank, 

 and one of the friends of the late Emperor Augustus, found a 

 method of exercising his cruelty by means of this animal, for 

 he caused such slaves as had been condemned by him, to he 

 thrown into preserves filled with muraenae ; not that the land 



'f Hardouin says, ttat though this assertion is repeated by PUny in 

 0. 74 of the present Book, it is a mistake; we learn, however, from 

 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. o. 11, and Athenaeus, B. Tii., that the young 

 of the mursena are remarkable for the quickness of their growth. 



" This vulgar belief is, however, followed by Oppian, Halieut. B. i. 

 c. 55.5 ; Athenseus, B. vii. ; .Slian, Hist. Anim. B. i. c. 50, and B. ix. o. 66 ; 

 and Nicander, Theriac, who, however, adds, " if indeed it is the truth." It 

 is also alluded to by Basil, in Hexaem. Homil. vii., and Ambrose, Homil. 

 V. c. 7. 



'* Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 11, only quotes this story as he lad 

 heard it, and does not vouch for its truth. Doro, as quoted by AthensEUS, 

 B. vii., makes the zmyrus and the muriena to be of totally different genera. 

 The zmyrus, he says, is without bone, the whole of it is eatable, and it is 

 remarkable for the tenderness of the flesh. There are two kinds, of which 

 the best, he says, are those which are black. 



" The common muraena, Cuvier says, is spotted with brown and 

 yellow, but there is a larger kind, with stronger teeth and brown all over, 

 the Muraena Christini, of Risso. This, he has no doubt, is the zmyrus of 

 the ancients. Modern naturalists, he says, have incorrectly called Muraena 

 zmyrus, a small kind of conger, which has yellow spots upon the neck. 



8° Cuvier has already made some remarks on this passage in one of his 

 Notes to c. 24 of the present Book. See p. 395. 



*i The Seven Terriones, or plough oxen. The constellation of Ursa 

 Major was thus called by the Romans. 



82 This wretched man was originally a freedman, and though he was on 

 one occasion punished by Augustus for his cruelty, he left him a great part 

 of his property. He died B c. 15. He is supposed to be the same person 

 as the one against whom Augustus wrote some Fescennine verses, men- 

 tioned by Macrobius, Sat. B. ii. c. 4. 



