CHAP. 6.—MARVELLOUS PROPERTIES BELONGING TO CERTAIN FISHES.
Trebius Niger informs us that whenever the loligo[48] is seen darting above the surface of the water, it portends a change of weather: that the xiphias,[49] or, in other words, the swordfish, has a sharp-pointed muzzle, with which it is able to pierce the sides of a ship and send it to the bottom: instances of which have been known near a place in Mauritania, known as Cotte, not far from the river Lixus.[50] He says, too, that the loligo sometimes darts above the surface, in such vast numbers, as to sink the ships upon which they fall.
CHAP. 7.—PLACES WHERE FISH EAT FROM THE HAND.
At many of the country-seats belonging to the Emperor the fish eat[51] from the hand: but the stories of this nature, told with such admiration by the ancients, bear reference to lakes formed by Nature, and not to fish-preserves; that at Elorus, a fortified place in Sicily, for instance, not far from Syracuse. In the fountain, too, of Jupiter, at Labranda,[52] there are eels which eat from the hand, and wear ear-rings,[53] it is said. The same, too, at Chios, near the Old Men’s Temple[54] there; and at the Fountain of Chabura in Mesopotamia, already mentioned.[55]
CHAP. 8.—PLACES WHERE FISH RECOGNIZE THE HUMAN VOICE. ORACULAR RESPONSES GIVEN BY FISH.
At Myra, too, in Lycia, the fish in the Fountain of Apollo, known as Surium, appear and give oracular presages, when thrice summoned by the sound of a flute. If they seize the flesh thrown to them with avidity, it is a good omen for the person who consults them; but if, on the other hand, they flap at it with their tails, it is considered an evil presage. At Hierapolis[56] in Syria, the fish in the Lake of Venus there obey the voice of the officers of the temple: bedecked with ornaments of gold, they come at their call, fawn upon them while they are scratched, and open their mouths so wide as to admit of the insertion of the hands.
Off the Rock of Hercules, in the territory of Stabiæ[57] in Campania, the melanuri[58] seize with avidity bread that is thrown to them in the sea, but they will never approach any bait in which there is a hook concealed.
CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET.
Nor is it by any means the least surprising fact, that off the island of Pele,[59] the town of Clazomenæ,[60] the rock[61] [of Scylla] in Sicily, and in the vicinity of Leptis in Africa,[62] Eubœa, and Dyrrhachium,[63] the fish are bitter. In the neighbourhood of Cephallenia, Ampelos, Paros, and the rocks of Delos, the fish are so salt by nature that they might easily be taken to have been pickled in brine. In the harbour, again, of the last-mentioned island, the fish are sweet: differences, all of them, resulting, no doubt, from the diversity[64] of their food.
Apion says that the largest among the fishes is the sea-pig,[65] known to the Lacedæmonians as the “orthagoriscos;” he states also that it grunts[66] like a hog when taken. These accidental varieties in the natural flavour of fish—a thing that is still more surprising—may, in some cases, be owing to the nature of the locality; an apposite illustration of which is, the well-known fact that, at Beneventum[67] in Italy, salted provisions of all kinds require[68] to be salted over again.