[204] Literally, “fish-glue.” We can hardly believe Pliny that any fish was known by this name. Hardouin takes the fish here spoken of to be identical with that mentioned in B. ix. c. 17, as being caught in the Borysthene, and destitute of bones. It is most probable, however, that the “ichthyocolla” of the ancients, or “fish-glue,” was the same as our isinglass, and that it was prepared from the entrails of various fish, the sturgeon more particularly, the Acipenser huso of Linnæus.
[205] The best isinglass still comes from Russia.
[206] “Nativi coloris.” See B. viii. c. 23. Beckmann says, in reference to the present passage: “We manufacture the wool of our brown sheep in its natural colour, and this was done also by the ancients.”—Hist. Inv. vol. ii. p. 110, Bohn’s Ed.
[207] The “calamites” above mentioned, so called from “calamus,” a reed.
[208] The Bryonia Cretica of Linnæus; see B. xxiii. c. 16.
[209] An eminent surgeon, born at Sidon in Phœnicia, who practised at Rome, probably in the first century B.C.
[210] “Mutis,” “silent,” or “voiceless” frogs, as suggested by Gessner, Hist. Anim. B. ii., would almost seem to be a preferable reading here to “multis,” “many.”
[211] Another reading is “tænia,” a fish mentioned by Epicharmus, Athenæus informs us, and considered by Ajasson to be probably identical with the Cepola rubescens, or Cepola tænia of Linnæus.
[212] The same as the Batis of the Greeks, Hardouin thinks, the Raia batis, a kind of skate.
[213] See B. ix. c. 28.