406 
PLIKT's KATUllAL HISTOEY. 
[Book IX 
CHAP. 34. (19.)— FISHES WHICH HA YE A VOICE. FISHES WITH- 
OUT GILLS. 
Arcadia produces a wonder in its fish called exocoetus/^ from 
the fact that it comes ashore to sleep. In the neighbourhood 
of the river Clitorius/^ this fish is said to be gifted with powers 
of speech, and to have no gills by some writers it is called 
the adonis. 
CHAP. 35. FISHES WHICH COME OUT LAND. THE PEOPER TIME FOR 
CATCHING FISH. 
Those fish, also, which are known by the name of sea-mice/® 
name of Paladru, fish of most delicate flavour, called umblse," were to 
be taken in the month of December, and at no other part of the year ; so, 
too, the alausse, which are found in the Ehine, near Strasburg, in the month 
of May only, and at no other time. 
^5 'Atto tov Koirav, " from its sleeping out of the water." This 
fish is also mentioned by Theophrastus, in his Fragment on the " Fish that 
live on dry land ; " by Clearchus the Peripatetic, as quoted by Athenaeus, 
B, viii.; Oppian, in his Halieutics, B. i. 1. 158; and ^lian, Hist. Anini. 
B. ix. c. 36. The fish, however, mentioned by all these authorities, is a sea- 
fish, while that of Pliny, being found in Arcadia, must, of necessity, be a river 
fish. The proper name of the fish here mentioned by him was TroiKiXiag, 
llardouin says, so called from the variety of its colours. Cuvier says, that 
the fish here mentioned is not the Exocoetus of Linnaeus, which is' one of 
the flying fish, but is clearly of opinion that it is one of the genus Blen- 
nius, or Gobio, that is alluded to ; for these small fish are often to be found 
left on the shore when the waters retire, and have the property of being 
able to remain alive for a considerable time without water. 
In the river Aroanius, which falls into the Clitorius. Pausanias 
mentions this story, but adds, that he never could hear the fish, although 
he often went there to listen, Mnaseas of Patrae, an author quoted by 
AthenaBus, B. viii., also mentions these vocal fishes. 
Cuvier understands this to mean only, that the openings of the gills 
are remarkably small : for, as he says, there is no fish whatever without 
gills. It is very possible, however, that Pliny may have mistranslated a 
passage found in Athenajus, and quoted from Clearchus the Peripatetic, 
in which he says that some fish have a voice, and yet have no throat, 
^poyxov ; which may have, possibly, been mistaken by our author for 
(Bpdyxia, gills." 
*s " Marini mures." Cuvier says, that according to Oppian, Halieut. B. 
V. c. 174, et seq.y the sea-mice, small as they are, attack other fish, and 
offer resistance even to man himself. Their skin, he says, is very solid, 
and their teeth very strong. Theophrastus names them along with seals 
and birds, as feeding both on land and at sea. Cuvier is somewhat at a 
loss whether to pronounce them, with Dalechamps, to be a kind of turtle. 
If so, he considers that this would be the little turtle, Testudo coriacea of 
