[913] Perea Nilotica. Cuvier, Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, xii. 5.
[914] Silurus anguillaris. Linn.
[915] Pliny, xxxii. 5. Coracini pisces Nilo quidem peculiares sunt. Athenæus, b. vii. c. 83, p. 484. Bohn’s Classical Library.
[916] Called by the Arabs gamor-el-Lelleh, or star of the night. Cuvier.
[917] The shad.
[918] The mullet.
[919] About six feet. Nicander is the author of two Greek poems that are still extant, and of several others that have been lost. He may be supposed to have been in reputation for about fifty years, cir. B. C. 185-135. The longest of his poems that remains is named Theriaca. It treats (as the name implies) of venomous animals, and the wounds inflicted by them, and contains some curious and interesting zoological passages, together with numerous absurd fables. The other treats of poisons and their antidotes. His works are only consulted by those who are interested in points of zoological and medical antiquities. He is frequently quoted by Athenæus. See Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography, art. Nicander.
[920] Herod. ii. 36.
[921] Strabo does not appear to have been acquainted with the plant from which these tissues were made. Their true name seems to have been cucina, and were made from a palm-tree (the Doum palm), called by Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 4, 2) κουκιοφόρον, and by Pliny “cuci” (b. xiii. 9): “At e diverso, cuci in magno honore, palmæ similis, quando et ejus foliis utuntur ad textilia.”