[382] Ælian, I. 2.
[383] Aristotle and Pliny, supra; Oppian, I. 135-7; Ælian, II. 54.
[384] Aristotle (according to Athen., VIII. 3) states that the scarus and sea-hog are the only fishes that have any kind of voice, but in reality he (IV. 9) mentions five others, among which is the cuckoo-fish, who “whistle and grunt” (see Pliny, XI. 112; Oppian, I. 134-5). Athenæus errs, for Aristotle (N. H., IV. 9, 8) asserts that the Dolphin when out of the water “groans and cries”; while Pliny (IX. 7) says of the Dolphin, “Pro voce gemitus humano similis.” Aristotle expressly differentiates between the five mentioned fish and the Dolphin—for the former possess no lungs, windpipe, or pharynx, and so can produce no voice, only “sound,” while “the dolphin has a voice and therefore utters vocal and vowel sounds, for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe.”
[385] Someone may throw at me the sentence of Seleucus of Tarsus, who in the only English translation of Athenæus (by C. D. Yonge) is made to say (VII. 113), “The Scarus is the only fish which never sleeps.” If Yonge had been faithful to the text (Schweighäuser’s) which he expressly states he had adopted, he would have omitted the οὐ, because it is in brackets and the editor expressly puts against it the note “Deest vulgo negativa particula,” and his accompanying Latin translation is “unum hunc ex omnibus piscibus dormire.” Kaibel (Leipzig, 1887) also brackets the οὐ, while Dindorf (1827) has no οὐ, bracketed or other.
[386] Aristotle, N. H., II. 13; Pliny, XI. 61. Another instance of the carelessness of Athenæus—induced perhaps by his omnivorous reading—is to be found in the first line of VII. 113, “The Scarus, Aristotle says, has sharp or jagged teeth,” whereas a reference to N. H., II. 13, discloses that all fish except the scarus have sharp or jagged teeth, a statement which is confirmed by Rondolet.
[387] Cf. Opp., IV. 40-64; Pliny, XXXII. 5; and Ovid, Hal., 9 ff.
[388] Ælian, N. H., 12, 42.
[389] Pliny, XXXII. 8.
[390] Ep., 3, 13.
[391] Cf. Suetonius, Augustus, c. 83.