Chap. X.] OPINIONS OF THEOPHKASTUS. 



345 



in Aristotle's treatise De Respirations 1 , where he 

 mentions the strange discovery of living fish found be- 

 neath the surface of the soil, " t&v lyQvwy ol ttoWoI 



^(OCTLV SV TT) ryfj, aKlV7]TlCpVTZS fASVTOly Kdl avpLCrtCOVTCLl OpVT- 



TOfievoc and in his History of Animals he conjectures 

 that in ponds periodically dried the ova of the fish so 

 buried become vivified at the change of the season. 2 

 Herodotus had previously hazarded a similar theory to 

 account for the sudden appearance of fry in the Egyptian 

 marshes on the rising of the Nile ; but the cases are not 

 parallel. Theophrastus, the friend and pupil of Aris- 

 totle, gave importance to the subject by devoting to it 

 his essay Ylspl rrfs tcov fyOvcov sv tyipcp Scafjiovr}?, De 

 Piscibus in sicco degentibus. In this, after adverting 

 to the fish called exocoetus, from its habit of going on 

 shore to sleep, " cltto tt}s koltti$" he instances the small 

 fish (IxOvSia), that leave the rivers of India to wander 

 like frogs on the land ; and likewise a species found 

 near Babylon, which, when the Euphrates runs low, 

 leave the dry channels in search of food, " moving 

 themselves along by means of their fins and tail." He 

 proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are 

 places in which fish are dug out of the earth, e€ opv/crol 

 T<hv lydvobv? and he accounts for their being found 

 under such circumstances by the subsidence of the 

 rivers, "when the water being evaporated the fish 

 gradually descend beneath the soil in search of mois- 

 ture ; and the surface becoming hard they are preserved 

 in the damp clay below it, in a state of torpor, but are 

 capable of vigorous movements when disturbed." " In 

 this manner, too," adds Theophrastus, " the buried fish 



1 Chap. ix. 



2 Lib. vi. ch. 15, 16, 17. 



