Chap. 2.] 
SEA MO^fSTERS. 
359 
trouble to examine the grape-fisli,^ the sword-fish,^ the saw- 
fish/ and the cucumber-fish,^ which last so strongly resembles 
the real cucumber both in colour and in smell. We shall find 
the less reason then to be surprised to find that in so small an 
object as a shell-fish^ the head of the horse is to be seen pro- 
truding from the shell. 
CHAP. 2. (3.) THE SEA MONSTEBS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN. 
But the most numerous and largest of all these animals are 
those found in the Indian seas ; among which there are balsense,^ 
four jugera"* in extent, and the pristis,^ two hundred cubits 
2 Hardouin has the following remark on this passage. ''Rondelet 
and Aldrovandus only waste their time and pains in making their minute 
inquiries into the present names of these fish, which took their names 
from grapes, the wood, the saw, and the cucumber ; for by no other writer 
do we find them mentioned even." Cuvier, however, does not seem to 
be of Hardouin's opinion, that such investigations are a waste of time, and 
has suggested that the eggs of the Sepia officinalis may be alluded to, the 
eggs of which are in clusters of a dark colour, and bearing a strong re- 
semblance to black grapes. This resemblance to a bunch of grapes is noticed 
by Pliny himself, in c. 74 of the present Book. 
3 He alludes, most probably, to Avhat we call the ^'sword-fish," the 
" Xiphias gladius" of Linnaeus. 
* Probably, in allusion to the " Squalus pristis'^ of Linnaeus. 
5 Cuvier suggests that he probably alludes to the " Holothuria pentac- 
tes" of Linnaeus, or the sea-priapus ; and remarks, that when the animal 
contracts itself, it bears a very strong resemblance to a cucumber. 
6 Cuvier says, that he most probably alludes to the " Syngnathus 
hippocampus" of Linnaeus. This little fish, he says, is also called the sea- 
horse, and having the body armed with a hard coat, might very easily have 
been taken for a shell-fish. Its head, in miniature, bears a very strong 
resemblance to that of a horse. 
^ It is not accurately known what fish was meant by the ancients, under 
the name of " balaena." According to some writers, it is considered to be 
the same with what we call the '' grampus." 
s A space, as Hardouin remarks, greater than that occupied by some 
towns, the '' jugerum" being 240 feet long, and 120 broad. The vast size 
of great fishes was a favourite subject with some of the ancient writers, 
and their accounts were eagerly copied by some of the early fathers. 
Bochart has collected these various accounts in his work on Animals, B. i. 
c. 7. In the " Arabian Nights" also, we find accounts of huge fishes in 
the eastern seas, so large as to be taken for islands. The existence of the 
sea-serpent is still a question in dispute ; and a whale of large size, is a 
formidable obstacle in the way of a ship of even the largest burthen. 
9 As Hardouin remarks, we can learn neither from the works of Pliny, 
nor yet of ^lian, what fish the pristis really was. From Nonius Marcel- 
lus, c. 13, we find that it was a very long fish of large size, but narrow 
