400 
PLINY' S NATURAL HISTOET. 
[Book IX. 
CHAP. 29. THE SCAKXJS, THE MUSTELA. 
At the present day, the first place is given to the scaruSj^^ the 
only fish that is 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 Em- 
peror Claudius, had this fish brought from that locality, and 
dispersed in various places off the coast between Ostia and the 
^0 Cuvier says that tliis fish held, as PUny here states, the very highest 
place at the Eoman tables, and was especially famous : First, because it 
was supposed to ruminate; in allusion to which, Ovid says, Halieut. 1. 118, 
*' But, on the other hand, some fishes extend themselves on the sands 
covered with weeds, as the scarus, which fish alone ruminates the food it 
has eaten." Secondly, because, as Aristotle, B. viii. c. 2, and ^lian, B. i. 
c. 2, inform us, it lived solely on vegetables. Thirdly, because it had the 
faculty of producing a sound, as we learn from Oppian, Halieut. B. i. 
1. 134, and Suidas. Fourthly, for its salacious propensities, numbers being 
taken by means of a female attached to a string, Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. 
1. 78, and -iElian, B. i. c. 2. Fifthly, for its remarkable sagacity in afi'ord- 
ing assistance to another, when taken in the net ; relative to which Ovid 
has the following curious passage, Halieut. 1. 9, et seq. "The scarus is 
caught by stratagem beneath the waves, and at length dreads the bait 
fraught with treachery. It dares not strike the osiers with an effort of its 
head ; but, turning away, as it loosens the twigs with frequent blows of its 
tail, it makes its passage, and escapes safely into tbe deep. Moreover, if 
perchance any kind scarus, swimming behind, sees it struggling within the 
osiers, he takes hold of its tail in his mouth, as it is thus turned away, and 
so it makes its escape." Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. 1. 40, and JElian, Hist. 
Anim. B. i. c. 4, mention the same circumstance. We find that it was 
highly esteemed by the Roman epicures, even in early times, it being men- 
tioned by Ennius and Horace. It was salted with the intestines in it ; and 
Martial, B. xiii. Ep, 84, seems to speak of it as not being good to eat with- 
out them. It was a high-coloured fish, so much so, that Marcellus Sidetes 
called it "floridum," while by Oppian it is called woiklXov, or " variegated." 
Rondelet thinks that it was one of spari or the labri, while Belon describ(^ 
as such, a fish now unknown to zoologists, the tail of which, he says, has 
projecting spines. Aldrovandus calls it by the name of Scarus Cretensis, a 
species'of the genus which at present goes by the name of Scarus, and which 
is distinguished by osseous jaw-bones, resembling in shape the beak of a 
parrot. Cuvier says, that on finding from Belon that the name aKapoq was 
still in use in the jEgean Sea, he ordered the various kinds of it to be 
brought to Paris ; upon which he found that they exactly resembled the 
Scarus Cretensis of Aldrovandus, and he consequently has no doubt that it 
is essentially the same fish as the scarus of the Greeks and Romans. From 
the resemblance above stated, it is not uncommonly called the " parrot- 
fish while by some it has been thought to have resembled our char. 
11 See B. v. cc. 32, 41. 
