Rumination in Fish. 193 



covered with sea-weed, and assigns to it the possession of a 

 voice : — 



" Here scaros feed, the only kinds that dare 

 To form shrill soundc, and strike the trembling air. 

 To pensive silence doom'd, no other fish 

 Can speak his wants, or tell his secret wish ; 

 Thrice o'er their food the wanton scaros eat, 

 With pleasure the luxurious toil repeat, 

 Like sheep in grassy meads, or fat'ning kine, 

 They chew the cud, and on the taste refine."* 



Amongst other of the varied accomplishments attributed to 

 the scarus may be mentioned the mode by which it would 

 rescue one of its captive friends, as it lay confined in the weel 

 trap. The scarus would insert its tail between the twigs, and 

 the prisoner would seize it with its teeth, and so be dragged 

 out by main force, the captive firmly holding in his mouth the 

 liberator's caudal appendage ! From Horace and Martial we 

 learn that the scarus was a favourite and dainty dish; the 

 latter speaks of its beiug only good when cooked with its 

 intestines : — 



" Hie scarus, aequoreis qui venit obesus abundis, 

 Visceribus bonus est ; csetera vile sapit" (xiii., 84). 



Similarly Athenseus (Deipnosoph, vii., 113), quoting Epi- 

 charmus — 



" We fish for spari, and for scari too, 

 Whose very dung may not be thrown away." 



Archestratus, in his recommendations as to the best mode 

 of cooking scari, refers to the form of the fish in the following 

 line : — 



/ecu /uLtyeOos kvkXIo. Xcov acnriSi v<j»tol (popovuTa. 

 " With back as broad as a large round shield," 



a description quite applicable to some of the scari. 



Pliny says of this fish : — " At the present day, the first 

 place is givin to the Scarus, the only fish said to ruminate and 

 to feed on grass, and not on other fish. It is mostly found in 

 the Carpathian Sea, and never of its own accord passes Lectum, 

 a promontory of Troas. Optatus Elipertius, the commander 

 of the fleet under the Emperor Claudius, had this fish brought 

 from that locality, and dispersed in various places of the coast 

 between Ostia and the districts of Campania. v During five 

 years the greatest care was taken that those which were caught 



* Halieutics I., 215 — 222. Draper's translation. Oppian's own words are 

 very clear and expressive : — 



Kai jxovvos eSrjTuy 

 tyoppov irpoirjffiv ava crr^ua, Sevrepov duTis 

 Saivvfitvos, fxrjAoiariu avamveraoov 'iaa (popfSrjv. 

 VOL. XI. — NO. III. 



