380 
Pliny's natural histoiiy. 
[Book IX. 
ber. Some are covered with a hide and hair, as the sea-calf 
and hippopotamus, for instance ; others again, with a hide 
only, as the dolphin ; others again, with a shell, ^ as the turtle ; 
others, with a coat as hard as a stone, like the oyster and other 
shell-fish ; others, with a crust, such as the cray-fish ; others, 
with a crust and spines, like the sea-urchin ; others, with 
scales, as fishes in general ; others, with a rough skin, as the 
squatina,^ the skin of which is used for polishing wood and 
ivory ; others, with a soft skin, like the mursena ; and others 
with none at all, like the pol3rpus.^^ 
CHAP. 15. (13.) THOSE WHICH AEE COVEEED WITH HAIE, OR 
HAVE NONE, AND HOW THEY BRING FORTH. SEA-CALVES, OR 
PHOC^. 
Those aquatic animals which are covered with hair are vivi- 
parous, such, for instance, as the pristis, the balaena,^^ and the 
sea-calf. This last brings forth its young on land, and, like the 
sheep, produces an after-birth. In coupling, they adhere 
after the manner of the canine species ; the female some- 
times produces even more than two, and rears her young at 
the breast. She does not take them down to the sea until the 
twelfth day, and after that time makes them become used to 
it by degrees. -^^ These animals are killed with the greatest dif- 
s The Latin is " cortex," which probably means a " bark," or rind." 
Ajasson remarks upon the meagreness of the Latin language, in supplying 
appropriate words for scientific purposes, and congratulates himself upon 
adding the word, "carapax," (signifying " callipash," as we call it) to the 
Latin vocabulary. 
^ By us known as the ^'angel-fish," the " Squalus squatina" of Linnseus, 
a kind of shark. From this property of its skin, it was called by the Greeks 
pLvr]^ the " file." See B. xxxii. c. 53. 
10 Probably the Mureena helena of Linnseus. See more on it in c. 23 of 
the present Book. 
11 Spoken of more fully in c. 23 of this Book. 
12 Cuvier remarks, how very inappropriately Pliny places the pristis 
(probably the saw-fish) and the balsena among the animals that are 
covered with hair. Aristotle, he says, in his Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 12, 
goes so far as to say that the pristis and the ox-fish (a kind of ray or 
thorn-back, probably) bring forth their young like the balsena and the 
dolphin, but does not go beyond that. Cuvier says also, that what is here 
stated of the sea-calf is in general correct, except the statements as to the 
properties of its skin and its right fin, the stories relative to which are, of 
course, neither more nor less than fabulous. 
13 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 11, states to the like eftect. 
