236 PEOSE HALIEITTICS. 



Ichthyolites occur in formations anterior to that of 

 the limestone^ in lime itself, and iu more recent deposits ; 

 above allj the coarse calcareous concrete in which shells 

 abound is said to produce the largest supply. Volcanic 

 Italy teems with these curiosities, and we remember with 

 regret an opportunity we once had and lost, during a 

 summer's sojourn at Vico, in the Bay of Naples, when 

 the road between Sorrento and CasteUamare was being 

 widened, of purchasing many fine specimens at a very 

 small outlay. 



There is, we believe, no mentiou made by the ancients 

 of any such antediluvian remains. "What they under- 

 stood by fossil fish was quite another thing ; and as many 

 of onr readers may possibly never have heard of subter- 

 ranean fish alive, we append Theophrastus's short account 

 of them, as the subject is one by no means devoid of in- 

 terest. He seems to have been the first to draw at- 

 tention to these underground prodigies, ' telling strange 

 wonders of certaine kinds which are about Babylon, 

 where there be many places subject to the inundations 

 of the Euphrates and other rivers, and wherein water 

 standeth, after that the rivers are returned within their 

 banks, in which the fishe remaine in certaine holes and 

 caves. Some of them (saith he) used to issue forth on 

 land for food and releafe, going upon their finnes in lieu 

 of feet, and wagging their tails ever as they go ; and if 

 any chase them, or come to take them, they wUl retire 

 into their ditches aforesaid, and there make head and 

 stand against them. They are headed like to the sea- 

 frog (or the sea-devil) , made in other parts like gudgeons 

 and guilled in manner of other fish. Moreover, that 

 about Heraclea and Cromna, and namely near the river 

 Lycus, and in many other quarters of the kingdome of 

 Pontus, there is one kind above the rest that haunteth 

 river-sides and the utmost edge of the water, making 

 herself holes imder the bankes and within the land where 



