FOOD, VOICE, SLEEP, LOYALTY OF SCARUS 165 
But Aristotle (and, of course, Pliny) hold that most, perhaps 
all, fish do sleep, even if their eyelids are not closed: at any 
rate Tunnies and all flatfish do, while Pliny (X. 97) goes as 
far as asserting that “ Dolphins and whales can be heard to 
snore!” 
(E) Has plain, not sharp or jagged, teeth.! 
(F) Never deserts his fellow fish. If he have swallowed a 
bait, his friends flock around him and liberate him by biting 
the line in two. If he be caught in trap or weel, they approach- 
ing very delicately give the prisoner the choice of (a) gripping 
with his teeth a tail ‘‘ by which he is dragged through the mesh 
of twigs,” or (0) of pushing through his own tail, which they 
(outside) seize, and pull him through the weel backwards— 
thus avoiding damage from the twigs to the eyes of the 
captive.? 
This devotion to his imprisoned fellow was turned to good 
account by fishermen. Fastening a hook in the jaw of and 
trailing a net behind a female scarus (preferably alive) they 
secured large catches by dropping the lead, which reversed the 
net and enmeshed the would-be rescuers. With the seed of 
the coriander Scart are taken ‘‘ with a vengeance ! ’’ 3 
#ilian (I. 4) concludes a similar story, probably purloined 
from Oppian, for he was an adept in picking up unconsidered 
and unacknowledged trifles, with, “‘ These things do they, as 
men do: but to do loving-kindness are ¢hey born, not taught ”’ ; 
which demonstrates that the invaluable Scarus provides men, 
not only with a menu, but also a moral ! 
only English translation of Athenzus (by C. D. Yonge) is made to say (VII. 113), 
‘‘ The Scarus is the only fish which never sleeps.’’ If Yonge had been faithful 
to the text (Schweighduser’s) which he expressly states he had adopted, he 
would have omitted the od, because it is in brackets and the editor expressly 
puts against it the note “ Deest vulgo negativa particula,” and his accompany- 
ing Latin translation is ‘‘ unum hunc ex omnibus piscibus dormire.”” Kaibel 
(Leipzig, 1887) also brackets the od, while Dindorf (1827) has no od, bracketed 
or other. 
1 Aristotle, N. H., II. 13; Pliny, XI. 61. Another instance of the care- 
lessness of Athenzus—induced perhaps by his omnivorous reading—is to be 
found in the first line of VII. 113, ‘‘ The Scarus, Aristotle says, has sharp or 
jagged teeth,” whereas a reference to N. H., II. 13, discloses that all fish except 
the scarus have sharp or jagged teeth, a statement which is confirmed by 
Rondolet. 
2 Cf. Opp., IV. 40-64; Pliny, XXXII. 5; and Ovid, Hal., 9 ff. 
3 Alian, N. H., 12, 42. 
