TRAITS OF THE MUGIL 267 
species are not produced by copulation, but grow spontaneously 
from mud and sand.” ! 
Apart from characteristics already mentioned, ¢.g. its greed 
and guile, its hereditary feud with the Lupus, its being “ the 
swiftest of fishes’ (which attribute, nevertheless, saved it not 
from being the prey of the slowest, if not the shrewdest of 
fishes, the Pastinaca or string-ray,2) we find various points of 
interest noted by ancient writers : 
(A) ‘“‘ Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on the 
contrary, unwholesome for the Cestveus, for rain and snow 
superinduce blindness.”’ 3 
(B) The passionate desire of the Cestveus, when about to 
spawn, ‘‘ renders it so unguarded’ that, if a male or female 
be caught, fastened to a line, allowed to swim to sea, and then 
gently drawn back to land, shoals of the opposite sex will 
follow the captive close up to the shore and fill the awaiting 
nets.¢ This method of fishing, which prevails at Elis at the 
present day, is but one, as Apostolides indicates, of the many 
survivals in modern Greece of the ancient craft.® 
(C) The Mugil, together with three others, possesses by far 
the best sense of hearing, ‘and so it is that they frequent 
shallow water.’’ 6 
(D) The Mugil, anticipating the ostrich, hid its head when 
frightened and fancied that the whole of its body was concealed. 
Unlike the ostrich, however, it has long got cured of its 
“‘ ridiculous character’’ 7, for, as Cuvier remarks, this trait in 
modern times has not been observed. 
(E) The Mugil, although vouched for as the greediest and 
most insatiable of feeders, attained paradoxically the sobriquet 
of Nijoric, or the Faster. 
The epithet probably gained currency from the stomach of 
the fish (like that of most salmon caught in fresh water) rarely 
1 Arist., N. H., V. ro and 11. 
2 Pliny, IX. 67. 
3 Arist., N. H. VIIL., 19. 
* Oppian, Hal., IV. 120-145; Arist., op. cit., V. 5. 
5 Op. cit., p. 45. 
6 Pliny, X. 89, and Aélian, IX. 7. 
? Pliny, IX. 26. 
