Book 13

I am told that an eagle foretold to Gordius the kingship of his son Midas. While Gordius was ploughing, the eagle flew down, perched upon the yoke, and spent the whole day there; nor did it leave before evening, when Gordius gave over his ploughing at the hour when oxen are unyoked. And when Gelon of Syracuse was still a boy, an enormous wolf sprang into the schoolroom and snatched the writing-tablet from his hands with its teeth. Gelon leapt up from his seat and pursued it, not cowering before the beast but clinging fast to his tablet. But as soon as he had got outside the schoolroom, the building collapsed and buried the boys together with their teacher, while by divine providence Gelon alone survived. And here is the marvel: a wolf did not kill a man but saved one — the gods not disdaining to use even creatures without reason, to reveal a kingdom to the one and to save the other from impending danger. This love of the gods, then, is also a property peculiar to animals.

The Carians catch the sea-bream in this way. When the south wind blows gently and sends a softer breeze, when the swell has subsided and laps quietly upon the sands, then the fisherman has no need of a rod at all. He takes a switch of juniper, a very strong one, fastens a line to its tip, and threads upon the hook a half-salted fish with a mouth like a wolf's, and lets it down into the sea. He sits at the stern of his boat and works his bait, while a boy rows gently for him, deliberately learning beforehand to keep the stroke slow, and brings the boat in toward the land. Many sea-bream leap about, darting up out of the burrows where they live, and gather around the hook; for the fish, long since dead but dressed up to catch them, draws them on as though by a magic charm. Then, when they have come near the shore, they are easily taken, bound fast by the greed of their bellies.

Fish have many haunts: some live among the rocks, some in the sands, others among the grasses. For there are indeed sea-grasses, and some of them are called moss, others vines, and certain ones grapes, and others seaweed. There is even a kind of sea-grass called cabbage; and certain growths among them are called lichen and hairs. The food of these is different for different fish, and one accustomed to its own native and kindred grass would not, one might say, taste of another.

You may hear fishermen speaking of a fish called the callionymus. About it Aristotle says that it has a large gall-bladder lying upon its right lobe, and that its liver is carried on the left side. Menander also bears witness to this, in the Messenia I think, where he says, "I declare you have more gall than a callionymus"; and Anaxippus in the Man under Judgement, "If you provoke me and make all my gall boil up like a callionymus's, you will see I am no whit different from a dogfish-swordfish." Now there are some who say it is good to eat, but the greater number contradict them. The poets who have taken pains to give a lawful place in their verse to fish that are of some account do not readily mention it in their banquets of fishes — Epicharmus in The Marriage of Hebe and in Earth and Sea and besides in The Muses, and Mnesimachus in The Isthmian Victor.

The sea-frog also, like the birds, lays an egg. For it does not bring forth living young within itself; for even at birth its young have a head both large and rough, and on this account it is least able to receive its offspring back in fear; for they would gall and injure it if they re-entered. And likewise, when born and going forth, they would do much the same. So sea-frogs are neither easy in childbirth for the bringing of living creatures to birth, nor are they good refuges for their young. The eggs of frogs do not agree with the nature or peculiar character of other eggs; theirs too is rough, and has scales, and to one who touches it will seem resistant.

Octopuses too in time grow to great size, advancing toward the bulk of sea-monsters, and they too are reckoned among them. At any rate I am told that at Dicaearchia in Italy an octopus grew to a prodigious bulk of body and came to scorn and despise its food in the sea and the pastures there. This creature would even go forth onto the land and plunder some of the things on shore. Now there was a hidden conduit that carried the refuse of the said city out into the sea; up this the octopus would swim, climbing into a certain house by the shore, where there was a cargo belonging to Iberian merchants and salted fish from those parts stored in stout vessels. Then, wrapping its tentacles about the earthenware and squeezing it, it would break the jars and devour the salt fish. And when the merchants came in and saw the broken pottery, and found a great quantity of their cargo gone, they were astounded and could not guess who was plundering them: for the doors were seen to be untampered with, the roof unbroken, and the walls not dug through; yet the remains of the salt fish, left over by the uninvited guest, were plainly to be seen. So they decided to leave the boldest of their household indoors, armed, to lie in wait. That night the octopus crept up to its accustomed feast, and wrapping itself about the vessels — like an athlete in the wrestling clinch gripping his adversary firmly and very warily — it then crushed the pottery; for the octopus, one may say, was as easy a robber as ever was. It was the time of the full moon, the house was lit up, and everything was clearly visible. But the man would not set upon it alone, fearing the beast — for indeed the enemy was too great for one man — and at dawn he related to the merchants what had been done; and they, hearing it, would not believe him. Then some, remembering the magnitude of their loss, ventured the risk and hastened to engage the foe, while others, thirsting for the strange and incredible spectacle, shut themselves in along with them as volunteer allies. Then in the evening the thief came again and made for his accustomed table. At this point some blocked off the conduit, others armed themselves against the enemy, and with sharpened cleavers and razors they cut through its tentacles, as vine-dressers and woodcutters cut the topmost branches of an oak. And having lopped away its strength they brought it down at last, late and with difficulty, after no little labour; and — the strangest thing — merchants hunted a fish on dry land. So the malice and craftiness of this creature has been revealed to us as a property peculiar to it.

The Indians heal the wounds of captured elephants in this way. They bathe them with warm water, just as Patroclus did for the wound of Eurypylus in the fair pages of Homer; then they anoint them with butter. If the wounds are deep, they soothe the inflammation by applying and inserting pieces of pork, warm and still bloody. Their eye-diseases they treat by warming cow's milk and pouring it into them; the elephants open their eyelids, and being helped they take pleasure and feel it, just as men do. And they keep flushing them so long as they keep the rheum running; the proof that the inflammation has ceased is this. As for whatever other diseases befall them, dark wine is their remedy. But if a creature is not delivered from its sickness by this medicine, it is past saving.

For an elephant of the herd, though tamed, water is its drink; but for one trained for war the drink is wine — not the wine of the vine, but one they make by craft, one from rice, another from cane. They also go out to gather flowers for them; for elephants are lovers of fragrance, and they are led into the meadows to be broken in by the sweetest of scents. The elephant chooses out the flower, judging by its smell, and the trainer, holding a basket, holds it out as the beast gathers and casts in. Then, when it has filled the basket, it bathes, as though it had been plucking fruit, and delights in the bath like the more luxurious sort of men. Afterward, on returning, it longs for the flowers, and cries out if they are slow in coming, and will not take its food before someone brings it what it gathered. Then, taking the flowers from the basket with its trunk, it strews them over the edge of its manger, devising in this way, through their sweet scent, a relish for its food, so to speak. It also scatters many of the flowers over the place where it lodges, eager to win a sleep made sweet. The Indian elephants were nine cubits in height and five in breadth. The greatest of the elephants there are those called the Prasian, and second to these would rank the Taxilan.

To hold and check an Indian horse as it springs and bolts forward was not within every man's power, but only of those trained in horsemanship from boyhood. For it is not their custom to govern these horses with a bit, to keep them in rhythm and steer them, but with spiked muzzles; for the horses have an unruly tongue and an untried palate. Nevertheless these masters of horsemanship compel them to wheel about and turn round in a circle, revolving on the same spot. Whoever would do this needs both strength of arm and a thorough knowledge of horsemanship.

Those who have reached the height of this skill try to wheel and drive a chariot about in the same way; and it would be no contemptible feat to turn a team of four ravenous horses round with ease. The chariot carries two fighters beside the driver. The war-elephant, upon what is called its little tower, or indeed upon its bare and unencumbered back, carries three warriors, two hurling missiles on either side and the third behind, and a fourth who holds the goad in his hands and with it steers the beast, as a skilled steersman and master of the ship steers a vessel with the rudder. The hunting of leopards would be a Moorish practice. They have a building made of stones, resembling a kind of cage; this is the first enclosure. As for the second, further in, they hang from a longish cord a portion of rotten and stinking flesh, and they set up a flimsy door of reeds and certain canes, and through it the smell of the said flesh streams out and disperses. The beasts catch the scent — for somehow they take pleasure in foul smells — for the air bearing those odours strikes upon them, whether they are on the mountain-tops, or in a ravine, or even in a glen. Then, inflamed at meeting the smell, and by its overpowering urge, the leopard rushes headlong to the beloved banquet, drawn on by it as though by a magic charm. It falls upon the door, overturns it, and lays hold of its ill-fated dinner. For along with the said cord a very cunning snare has been woven in, which is set in motion as the flesh is eaten and closes about the greedy leopard. And she is caught — the unhappy creature paying the penalty for her ravenous belly and her loathsome feasting.

Hares are caught by foxes too, and by craft no less but even more; for the fox is clever at deceiving and knows tricks. Whenever by night it comes upon the track of a hare and perceives the creature, it steps up silently and with noiseless foot, holding back its panting, and coming upon it in its form tries to take it as one secure and unsuspecting. But the hare is not given to luxury, nor does it sleep heedlessly; the moment it perceives the approaching creature it leaps up from its bed and runs. And it accomplishes its course very swiftly, while the fox too darts upon its track and keeps to the chase. The hare, having run a long way and thinking itself now the stronger and beyond capture, plunges gladly into a thicket and rests; but the fox comes up and does not let it stay still, but rouses it again and drives it off on another course, blown along by the wind. Then this second course, no less than the first, is run to its end; and when the hare longs to rest once more, the fox comes up and, shaking the bush, works wakefulness upon it. And the hare runs off again, and the fox is not left behind. When course follows course upon it without break, and sleeplessness succeeds, the hare gives up, and the fox, coming upon it, takes it — not by speed, by Zeus, but mastering it by time and by craft. Now this account, running ahead, has been put off concerning the hare's running, and the rest it will be more seasonable to tell in what follows. So I return to the point from which I digressed. This, then, was the reason for scattering its offspring and rearing them apart, one here, one there. The hare is exceedingly fond of its young, but it fears the plots of hunters and the raids of foxes, and shudders no less at the assaults of birds, and at the voice of ravens and eagles most of all; for with these among winged creatures it has no truce. It hides itself either in a leafy bush or in deep standing corn, or sets some other necessary and unassailable shelter before itself.

I have heard an account from a hunter who in other respects too was a good man, the kind who would not lie, and I have believed him, and for that reason it shall be told. He said that the male hare also gives birth, and at the same time begets and is in labour, and does not lack a share in either nature. And he said it rears its young after bearing them, and that it brings forth perhaps two or three; and he affirmed this, and indeed he added that crowning instance to the whole account. A male hare, he said, was caught half-dead, and its belly was swollen as though it were pregnant. He admitted that it was cut open, and that a womb was found, and three leverets. These at first lay motionless when taken out, and lay there like mere lumps of flesh; but when, warmed by the sun and gradually heated, they had lain a while, they came round and revived, and one of them stirred and afterward looked up, and presently even put out its tongue and opened its mouth in longing for food. So, as was natural, milk was brought to such little creatures, and little by little they were reared — a proof, as it seems to me, of the marvellous nature of the parent that bore them. Yet I cannot persuade myself not to believe the account; and the reason is that the man's tongue knew neither falsehood nor boasting.

The hare is also knowing about winds and seasons; for there is something clever in it, though not gracious. In winter, then, it makes its bed in spots that face the sun; for it is plain that it gladly takes warmth and is hostile to cold; but in summer it inclines toward the north out of longing for cool. Its nostrils are its gauge of the difference of the seasons. The hare does not close its eyes when it sleeps — this it has alone among animals — nor are its eyelids overcome by sleep; they say it sleeps with its body, but at that time sees with its eyes. I write what the skilled hunters say. Hares feed by night, partly perhaps from a desire for strange food, but I should say it is for the sake of exercise, so that even then, when it holds out vigorously against sleep and stays active, it may keep up its speed. It loves the way back exceedingly, and is overcome by attachment to every familiar spot; and for this reason it is mostly caught, since it cannot bear to abandon its accustomed haunts.

The hare, when pursued by hounds and horsemen, runs — if it comes from level ground — more swiftly than mountain hares, being small of body and slender; and on this account it is not unlikely that it should be light. At first it skips up from the ground and leaps, and slips easily and smoothly through bushes and through every marshy place; and if the grass anywhere is deep, it passes through that too with ease. And just as they say the lion's tail can rouse and spur him on, so for the hare its ears serve as signals of speed and rousers of its course. It lays them back along its shoulders, and uses them, like spurs, to keep from idling and shrinking. It does not run a single straight course, but swerves this way and that, and twists here and there, confounding the hounds and deceiving them. Wherever it sets out and wishes to turn aside, in that direction of swerving it inclines one of its ears, as though steering its course by it. Nor does it spend its strength without stint, but watches the onset of its pursuer; and if the hound is sluggish, it does not let loose its whole speed, but holds something back, so as to run ahead of the hound, yet not to give out from the strain of the running itself. For it knows it is the better, and sees that it is the moment not to over-tax itself. But if the hound is very swift, then —

— the hare runs at the full stretch of its legs. Indeed, when it has got a long way ahead and left hunters and hounds and horses far behind, it leaps up onto some high hill and, raising itself upon its hind legs, looks out as from a watchtower at the contest of its pursuers, and seems to me to laugh at them as the weaker. Then, taking courage from this as having the advantage, and gladly seizing as it were a moment of peace and calm, it settles down and lies sleeping. The mountain hare is not so swift as those that dwell on the plains — unless indeed those mountain hares too have a plain lying below them, on which they come down and range; for they dwell on the mountain, but exercise there, often running together with those from the plains. In the plains, then, they are wont to be hunted, and some are stirred up while others lie hidden; and then, when from the customary chase the hidden ones are roused, not one escapes. But when they are on the point of being caught, turning a little aside from the plain track they leap up into the steep and mountainous ground, hastening as toward their own native and accustomed haunts; and going off in this way they are gone, having met with unexpected safety. For climbing the heights is by nature hostile to horses and hounds, since their feet fail them and are easily worn away. The hounds suffer this still more; for their feet are fleshy and have nothing resistant against the rock, as horses have their hoof. But the hare is the opposite: its feet are shaggy by nature, and so it endures rough ground. But hares whose haunts are in thickets and brush are sluggish in running and slow to flee; for such are fattened and, through idleness, not practised in running, and least of all do they stray far from the brush. The hunting of these is as follows. At first they slip through the small bushes, where the covert is not continuous; but the denser ones, since they cannot pass beneath, they naturally leap over. Some bushes are continuous and woven through one another; where these are, the hare — being often forced to do this, and not being given to leaping because of the weight of its body — soon tires and gives out. The hounds at first stumble and miss it; for they do not see it through the thickness of the wood, but they too leap over the bushes, led by the scent; yet at last they catch sight of it and pursue and give no quarter, while the hare, from the unbroken leaping, tires and gives out and is thereupon caught. Hares run up steep heights with ease, for their hind legs are longer than their front; but they do not run down so well, for the contrary disposition of their legs hinders them. There is also another hare, small by nature, that never grows large: its name is the coney. I am no coiner of names, and so in this treatise too I keep the name given it from the first, which the western Iberians bestowed upon it, among whom it is both bred and found in great abundance. Its colour, compared with the others, is dark, and it has a short tail; in other respects it is like in appearance to those described. It differs also in the size of its head, for its head is more slender, exceedingly fleshless, and shorter. It is whiter than the rest. They have year-round irritants in their nature, by which they are stung and driven wild when they rush upon the females. There is a bone in its heart, and to know what that bone is good for shall be another's concern.

The Italians and Sicilians like to call the hunting of tunny the "monster-fishery"; and the places where they store their great nets and the rest of their hunting gear are called "monster-hunting stations," since they wish to distinguish the tunny's size as belonging among the sea-monsters. I am told that the Celts and Massaliotes and all the Ligurian folk hunt tunny with hooks; these are made of iron, and are very large and thick to look upon. And let what I have now said about tunny, in addition to what was said before, be enough for me.

About the islands called Tyrrhenian those engaged in fishing hunt the monstrous fish of those waters, which they call the aulopias; and it is no bad thing to describe its peculiar features. In size the largest aulopias is inferior to the largest tunny, but in strength and fighting power it would bear off the first prize when set against them. For the tunny too is a valiant tribe of fishes, but to one who faces it and contends with it eagerly it yields the mastery after its first onset, its blood congealing within it, and being spent it is very swiftly caught. But the aulopias holds out for a long while when one sets upon it with force, and stands against the fisherman as against an adversary, and prevails for the most part, pressing itself harder down and bending its head and thrusting toward the deep; for it is strong in the jaw and powerful in the neck, and has excellent vigour. When it is taken, it is most beautiful to see, with its eyes open and round and large, such as Homer sings of in oxen; and its jaw, though strong as I said, yet also lends to its beauty. Its back imitates the colour of the deepest blue, but it is girt with a white belly; and a line of golden colour begins from its head and, running down to the tail-end, finishes in a circle. I am willing to tell the crafty way they hunt them, which I know from hearsay. Choosing out in advance the spots where they suppose the aulopiae to gather, they then catch with their bait-nets many small crows-fish; and mooring their boat upon anchors and continually making a certain noise underwater, they stretch out the crows-fish, fastening them tight with cords. These, hearing the noise and seeing the bait, swim up from this side and that, gather, and circle round the fishing-boat, and grow so tame at the din and the abundance of food that they remain even when men stretch out their hands. They endure a human touch — in my judgement, enslaved by the feeding, but, as the hunters say, also trusting in their strength. Among them there are tame ones too, which the fishermen recognize as benefactors and companions, and have a truce with them. Other strangers follow these as leaders, and these newcomers, as one might call them, they both hunt and kill; but toward the tame ones, which are like decoy doves, there is for them no hunting and a truce. Nor would so great a want ever come upon a skilled fisherman that he should take a tame aulopias by treachery; for if it is caught by chance, for certain reasons, it even causes grief. It is caught either by being pierced upon a hook or by being wounded to death. We see that fowlers too will not kill any of the decoy birds, either for sale or for dinner. And there are other ways of hunting these fishes as well.

In the royal palace of the Indians, where the greatest of their kings dwells, there are many other things worthy of wonder, so that one should set against them neither the Memnonian Susa and its sumptuousness, nor the magnificence at Ecbatana; for those would seem mere Persian boasting if compared with these. To go round the rest in my account does not belong to this treatise; but in the parks there are reared tame peacocks and pheasants made gentle to the hand, and these have their place among the trees that have been cultivated, which the royal keepers think worthy of the needful care. For there are shady groves and pasture grown together, and branches woven into one another by a certain art of arboriculture. And the most august thing about the beauty there is that the trees themselves are of the evergreen kind, and never grow old or shed their leaves; some are native, others brought from elsewhere with great care, which adorn the place and give it splendour — except the olive; for the land of the Indians does not bear it, neither produces it of itself, nor rears it when it comes from elsewhere. Other birds too come there, free and unenslaved, and arriving of their own accord they have their roosts and resting-places among the trees. There too the parrots are reared and throng about the king. No Indian eats a parrot, though they are very many in number; the reason is that the Brahmans believe them sacred, and indeed they honour them above all birds. And they add that they do this with good reason; for the parrot alone most eloquently imitates the human voice. There are also in this palace beautiful artificial lakes, and they hold fish of the greatest size and gentle; and no one hunts them except the king's sons while they are still children, fishing and playing in the calm and least dangerous water, and at the same time learning to swim.

In the Ionian Sea, off Leucas and the sea by Actium — where they call the region Epirus — there are, one might say, countless schools of grey mullet and very great numbers of them. They are hunted in a most astonishing way; and the manner of the hunting is this. The fishermen there, watching for a moonless night, after supper put out two to a boat, when there is no swell but the sea is calm and unbroken; then quietly and little by little they row forward. One man works the boat with his oar, bringing the skiff along at a walking pace, as one might say; the other, reclining on his elbow, weighs down his own side of the skiff and tilts it so far that its rim comes near the water. The grey mullet and the striped mullet of like kind, whether delighting in the night or rejoicing in the calm, leave their hollows and burrows and swim up, showing the tips of their faces above the water, taking so much of their upward swim that they come near the shore. The hunters, seeing them, row on, and the wash of the skiff begins gently to ripple. So the fish, fleeing the land and turning back, push themselves into the tilted side of the boat, and passing within are caught.

Of the sea-monsters, those that are exceedingly huge and prodigious in size swim in the midst of the open sea, and are even struck by thunderbolts. Besides these there are certain other rare creatures of the kind, and their name is "wheels." These swim in schools, chiefly on the right of Thracian Athos, in the gulfs as one sails from Sigeum; one may also meet them along the mainland opposite, by what is called the tomb of Artachaees and the Acanthian isthmus, where the Persian's cutting is to be seen, by which he cut through Athos. These monsters, which they call wheels, are said not to be valiant; but they show a crest and exceedingly long spines, so that these are often seen above the water. On hearing the noise of oars they wheel about and coil up, thrusting themselves as far down as possible; and from this they have got their name. They come up again unrolled and rolling the other way.

About Tritons the fishermen say they cannot give a clear account or strong proof; yet a report widely current says — yes, by Zeus, much is told — that there come to be in the sea certain monsters of human shape, in all that reaches from the head down to the waist. Demostratus, in his discourses on fishing, says that at Tanagra he saw a salted Triton. In all else, he says, it was like the figures sculptors fashion and painters draw; but its head, ruined by time, was not very clear, nor such as one could easily make out and recognize. "And when I touched it," he says, "rough scales fell off, and very resistant ones at that." One of the magistrates assigned by lot to govern Greece and entrusted with the office for a single year, wishing to test and prove the nature of what was seen, took off a little of the skin and consigned it to fire; and a heavy smell from the burning thing struck the nostrils of those present. Yet, he says, we could not determine whether the creature was by nature a land or a sea animal. But the trial did not pay him a good wage. For not long after he ended his life, crossing a narrow strait in a small skiff. And the Tanagraeans said, as Demostratus tells, that he suffered this in requital for the impiety he had committed against the Triton, alleging as proof that, while it was breathing out its last, it was taken from the sea and gave off an ichor like in smell to that of the Triton's skin when he burned and set fire to it. From where this Triton wandered, and how it was cast up here, let the Tanagraeans and Demostratus tell. As for these matters, I reverence the god, and it is right to believe so great a witness; and the Apollo at Didyma would be sufficient to prove it to anyone whose mind is sound and whose understanding is strong. He says, then, that the Triton is a sea-creature, and what he says is this: "A nursling of Poseidon, a watery monster, loud-voiced Triton, swimming, met the rush of a hollow ship." If, then, he who knows all things says that Tritons exist, we need not be perplexed about it.

When the king of the Indians goes forth to give judgement, the elephant is the first to do obeisance to him, having been taught this, and performing it both mindfully and obediently. There stands beside it the man who gives it the reminder of its lesson by a stroke of the goad and by a certain native call, which elephants are appointed by some secret nature to understand — a thing very peculiar to this creature. Moreover it sets in motion a certain warlike movement, as though showing that it preserves this lesson too. Twenty-four elephants attend the king as guards, by relief, like the rest of his sentinels, and the keeping of the watch is a lesson to them, and they do not nod off; for they are taught this too by a certain Indian art. Hecataeus of Miletus says that Amphiaraus the son of Oicles lulled the watch to sleep and suffered what he relates. But these elephants are wakeful and not overcome by sleep, and are the most trustworthy of the guards there after men.

As for me, with all the eagerness I had, examining and tracking these matters and what bears on them to the farthest point, I have learned that the centipede also is a kind of sea-monster, this too the greatest of monsters; and one cast up on shore no one would be bold enough to look upon. Those who know sea-creatures precisely say that these are seen afloat, and that the whole of what is the head juts out above the surface, and that they show hairs projecting from their nostrils, very tall ones, and a broad tail like that of a crayfish. The rest of its body too is seen floating on the waves, of such size as to be set against a full-sized trireme in bulk. They swim with many feet, ranged in a row on this side and on that, like oar-blades hung along (if it is somewhat harsh to hear), rowing themselves along. Those skilled in these things say that the wash sounds gently beneath them, and they persuade by what they say.

Xenophon says this too about hounds. One ought often to lead them into the mountains, but less into cultivated land; for the beaten paths from the worked fields trouble them and throw them off. It is better, he says, to lead them onto rough ground, and he teaches this further gain besides — that they become good of foot and better leapers by training their bodies. He says that the tracks of a hare are seen long in winter because of the length of the nights, but not so in summer, for the contrary reason. And it is plain from what has been said what the contrary reason means.

Horses and elephants the Indians honour as creatures useful both in arms and in war, and very greatly so. To the king, then, they bring sheaves which they cast into the mangers, and fodder, and they display it fresh and unspoiled. And if it is such, the king commends them; but if not, he punishes most severely the keepers of the elephants and the grooms of the horses. Nor does he dishonour the other creatures, but he accepts these too when they are brought to him as gifts. For the Indians despise no creature, neither tame nor wild. At any rate the subjects who are held in honour bring as gifts cranes and geese, fowls and ducks, turtle-doves and besides francolins, partridges and "spindali" (this last is like the francolin), and besides these, smaller than the aforesaid, "boccalides" and fig-peckers and the so-called millet-birds. They display them spread open, testing the depth of their fatness. And they bring a wealth of fattened deer and antelopes and gazelles and oryxes and the asses that have a single horn, of which I made mention somewhere above; and various kinds of fish too they bring.

There is also a sea-cicada. The largest of them resembles a small crayfish, but it has not large horns like those, nor stings. To look upon, the cicada is darker than the crayfish, and when it is caught it is like one chirping. A few small wings have grown beneath its eyes, and these too would be like those of the land cicadas. Most people do not eat it, holding it sacred. I am told that the Seriphians even bury one when it is caught dead; but if it falls alive into their net they do not keep it, but give it back to the sea. They make lament over them when they die, and they say that they are the plaything of Perseus son of Zeus.

The "hyena" is a fish that shares its name with the land hyena. If you place its right fin beneath a sleeping man, you will throw him into great disturbance; for he will see certain fearful sights and apparitions and phantoms, and other dreams in no way kindly or friendly. Again, if you cut off the tail of a horse-mackerel while it is alive, and then let the horse-mackerel go free again into the sea, but hang the said tail upon a pregnant mare, before long the embryo will be cast and the mare will miscarry. Again, when a youth, longing for the hairs of his chin, is at a loss for the longest time, the blood of a tunny smeared on makes the youth smooth before his time. The torpedo-fish and the "lung" do the same; for the flesh of these, rotted in vinegar and smeared on the chin, works, they say, the banishment of the hairs. What against this can those mischievous sophists of Tarentum and Tyrrhenia say, who tracked down and tried out that cunning pitch, to mark off men from women?

The gilthead is the most cowardly of all fishes. In the ebbings of the sea, when the season runs with Arcturus, the sea retreats about the headland, and bare sand is left behind, and ships often stand upon the land widowed of water. So the natives, sharpening green and leafy shoots of poplar like stakes and fixing them in the sand, withdraw; then the returning wave drags along an irresistible multitude of the said fish, and ebbs again, and many gilthead are left behind in shallow water, wherever a low hollow place is found. Then, cowering beneath the branches, they keep still; for being shaken and stirred by the wind that strikes them they take fright, and neither gasp nor leap up. So one may seize them like captives and strike them — a populace of cowardly fish, one might call it — with whatever comes to hand. At any rate not only experts catch them, but even a layman who chances to be by, and children and women too.