256 PEOSE HAlilEUTICS. 



Scania alone their folded eyelids close, 

 In grateful intervals of soft repose ; 

 In some sequester'd cell removed from sight, 

 They doze away the dangers of the night. 



If a scams swallowed a baitj ' his friends — unlike the 

 hares' — ^would flock round and liberate him by biting 

 the line j* again, if he fell into a net, they would poke 

 their taUs through and give him a choice, — if he pre- 

 ferred to lay hold of it with his teeth, the friend in that 

 case drew him through the prison-bars head-foremost; 

 but as the detenu was sometimes fearful of injuring 

 his eyes by so doing, against the twine, the ally from 

 without would advise him to thrust his tail through, 

 which he seized, and pulled the whole body through back- 

 wards. Supposing such relations true, iEUan's infer- 

 ence, that though scari never read any treatise ' de ami- 

 citia,' they act like true friends, and fulfil all the sacred 

 duties of their calhng, seems indisputable. 



After reading Lacepede's brilliant eulogy on the chro- 

 matic attractions of these gorgeous fish, all the world 

 wUl be disposed to admit with him, 'que des teintes 

 eblouissantes ou gracieuses, constantes ou fugitives, eten- 

 dues sur de grandes places ou disseminees en traits 

 legers, completent un des assortimens de couleurs les 

 plus splendides et les plus agreables a voir.' The frugal 

 Numa would not, it seems, suffer these expensive brains 

 of Jovet to be imported for public entertainments, inti- 

 mating- thereby that parsimony was agreeable to the 

 gods. The prohibitory statute enacting this ran, as 

 ScaUger conceived, thus : — 'Pisceis quel squammosi non 

 sunt, nei polluceto, squammosos omnes prseter scarum 

 polluceto.' 



* Plutarch. 



t ' Cerebrum Jovis supremi' is Ennius's poetic paraphrase for 

 the soarus. 



