[2841] Pomponius Mela, B. i. c. 9., and Ovid, Met. B. i. l. 422, et seq., tell the same story, which, however, has no truth in it whatever.
[2842] B. v. c. 35.
[2843] Oppian, Halieut. B. iii. c. 305, et seq., tells a similar story as to the mode of taking the anthias, with some slight variation, however.
[2844] “Damni formulam editam.”
[2845] Cuvier says, that the star-fish, the Asterias of Linnæus, is covered with a callous shell without, and has within only the viscera and the ovaria, apparently without any muscles. Aristotle reckons it among the fishes which he calls ὀστρακοδέρματα, or hard-shelled fish; while, on the other hand, Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xi. c. 22, reckons it among the μαλακόστρακα, or soft-shelled fish.
[2846] Cuvier says, that Pliny has good reason to say that he does not know upon what authority this power has been attributed to the star-fish; as it is altogether fabulous.
[2847] “Or finger.” The same fish that have been mentioned as “ungues,” or “onyches,” in c. 51 of the present Book. They are a multivalve shell-fish, Cuvier says, which live in hardened mud or the interior of rocks, into which they burrow cavities, from which they cannot retreat; and they can only be taken by breaking the stone. They have a flavour like pepper, and give out a phosphorescent light. See the end of c. [51].
[2848] Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 3. Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 48.
[2849] Aristotle says, that the tail of the conger is bitten by the murena, but not that of the murena by the conger. Hardouin suggests that Pliny may have learned this fact from the works of Nigidius Figulus.
[2850] Cuvier remarks, that in another passage, B. xi. c. 62, Pliny states that the “musculus qui balænam antecedit” has no teeth, but only bristles in its mouth. Now, in B. xxxii. c. 53, he speaks of the musculus as among the largest of animals; from which Cuvier concludes it to have been a species of whale, probably the “rorqual” of the Mediterranean. In confirmation of this, he thinks that the word “antecedit,” in B. xi. c. 62. has not the meaning of “goes before,” but “exceeds in size;” though here it is spoken of as leading the whale; and Oppian, Ælian, Plutarch, Claudian, speak of the conductor of the whale as a little fish. He is of opinion, in fine, that either Pliny or some of the authors from which he has borrowed, have made a mistake in the name, and probably given that of “musculus,” which was really a large fish, to a small one, which was commonly supposed to attend on the movements of the whale.