第120章

Wherever an anthias-fish is seen, there will be no dangerous creatures in the vicinity, and sponge-divers will dive in security, and they call these signal-fishes 'holy-fish'. It is a sort of perpetual coincidence, like the fact that wherever snails are present you may be sure there is neither pig nor partridge in the neighbourhood; for both pig and partridge eat up the snails.

The sea-serpent resembles the conger in colour and shape, but is of lesser bulk and more rapid in its movements. If it be caught and thrown away, it will bore a hole with its snout and burrow rapidly in the sand; its snout, by the way, is sharper than that of ordinary serpents. The so-called sea-scolopendra, after swallowing the hook, turns itself inside out until it ejects it, and then it again turns itself outside in. The sea-scolopendra, like the land-scolopendra, will come to a savoury bait; the creature does not bite with its teeth, but stings by contact with its entire body, like the so-called sea-nettle. The so-called fox-shark, when it finds it has swallowed the hook, tries to get rid of it as the scolopendra does, but not in the same way; in other words, it runs up the fishing-line, and bites it off short; it is caught in some districts in deep and rapid waters, with night-lines.

The bonitos swarm together when they espy a dangerous creature, and the largest of them swim round it, and if it touches one of the shoal they try to repel it; they have strong teeth. Amongst other large fish, a lamia-shark, after falling in amongst a shoal, has been seen to be covered with wounds.

Of river-fish, the male of the sheat-fish is remarkably attentive to the young. The female after parturition goes away; the male stays and keeps on guard where the spawn is most abundant, contenting himself with keeping off all other little fishes that might steal the spawn or fry, and this he does for forty or fifty days, until the young are sufficiently grown to make away from the other fishes for themselves. The fishermen can tell where he is on guard:

for, in warding off the little fishes, he makes a rush in the water and gives utterance to a kind of muttering noise. He is so earnest in the performance of his parental duties that the fishermen at times, if the eggs be attached to the roots of water-plants deep in the water, drag them into as shallow a place as possible; the male fish will still keep by the young, and, if it so happen, will be caught by the hook when snapping at the little fish that come by; if, however, he be sensible by experience of the danger of the hook, he will still keep by his charge, and with his extremely strong teeth will bite the hook in pieces.

All fishes, both those that wander about and those that are stationary, occupy the districts where they were born or very similar places, for their natural food is found there. Carnivorous fish wander most; and all fish are carnivorous with the exception of a few, such as the mullet, the saupe, the red mullet, and the chalcis.

The so-called pholis gives out a mucous discharge, which envelops the creature in a kind of nest. Of shell-fish, and fish that are finless, the scallop moves with greatest force and to the greatest distance, impelled along by some internal energy; the murex or purple-fish, and others that resemble it, move hardly at all. Out of the lagoon of Pyrrha all the fishes swim in winter-time, except the sea-gudgeon; they swim out owing to the cold, for the narrow waters are colder than the outer sea, and on the return of the early summer they all swim back again. In the lagoon no scarus is found, nor thritta, nor any other species of the spiny fish, no spotted dogfish, no spiny dogfish, no sea-crawfish, no octopus either of the common or the musky kinds, and certain other fish are also absent; but of fish that are found in the lagoon the white gudgeon is not a marine fish. Of fishes the oviparous are in their prime in the early summer until the spawning time; the viviparous in the autumn, as is also the case with the mullet, the red mullet, and all such fish. In the neighbourhood of Lesbos, the fishes of the outer sea, or of the lagoon, bring forth their eggs or young in the lagoon; sexual union takes place in the autumn, and parturition in the spring. With fishes of the cartilaginous kind, the males and females swarm together in the autumn for the sake of sexual union; in the early summer they come swimming in, and keep apart until after parturition; the two sexes are often taken linked together in sexual union.