34, 10.—THE SUBTERRANEAN FISH
Schweighaeuser in his note on this passage quotes Aristotle de Anim. 6, 15, who states that gudgeon thus hide themselves in the earth; and Seneca, Nat. Q., 3, 17 and 19, who refers to the fact piscem posse vivere sub terra et effodi, and quotes an instance as occurring in Caria. See also Livy, 42, 2, who, among other prodigies occurring in B.C. 173, says, in Gallico agro qua induceretur aratrum sub existentibus glebis pisces emersisse dicebantur. Eels and other fish have been found in the mud of ponds long after the ponds have been dried up. The truer account is given in Strabo (4, 1, 6): “There was a lake near Ruscino, and a swampy place a little above the sea, full of salt, and containing mullets (κεστρεῖς), which are dug out; for if a man dig down two or three feet, and drive a trident into the muddy water, he may spear fish which is of considerable size, and which feeds on the mud like the eels.”