Chapter IV.

1. All fish at the season of oviposition live upon ova; in the rest of their food they are not all so well agreed, for some of them are only carnivorous, as the selachos, conger, channa, thynnus, labrax, sinodon, amia, orphus, and muræna; the trigla lives upon fuci, shell-fish, and mud; it is also carnivorous. The cephalus lives on mud, the dascillus on mud and dung. The scarus and melanurus on sea-weed, the salpa on dung and fuci, it will also eat the plant called horehound; it is the only fish that can be caught with the gourd.

2. All fish, except the cestreus, eat one another, especially the congers. The cephalus and the cestreus alone are not carnivorous. This is a proof of it. They are never captured with anything of the kind in their stomach, nor are they captured with a bait made of flesh, but with bread; the cestreus is always fed upon sea-weed and sand. One kind of cephalus which some persons call chelone lives near the land, another is called peræas. This last feeds upon nothing but its own mucus, for which reason it is always very poor. The cephalus lives upon mud, wherefore they are heavy and slimy. They certainly never eat fish, on account of their dwelling in mud; they often emerge in order to wash themselves from the slime. Neither will any creature eat their ova, so that they increase rapidly, and when they increase they are devoured by other fish, and especially by the acharnus.

3. The cestreus (mullet) is the most greedy and insatiable of fish, so that its abdomen is distended, and it is not good for food unless it is poor. When alarmed it hides its head, as if its whole body were thus concealed; the sinodon also is carnivorous, and eats the malacia. This fish and the channa often eject their stomachs as they pursue small fish, for their stomach is near the mouth, and they have no œsophagus. Some are simply carnivorous, as the dolphin, sinodon, chrysophrys, the selache and malacia; others, as the phycis, cobius, and the rock-fish, principally feed upon mud and fuci, and bryum, and what is called caulion, and any matter which may be produced in the sea. The phycis eats no other flesh than that of the shrimps. They also frequently eat each other, as I before remarked, and the greater devour the less. It is a proof that they are carnivorous, that they are captured with bait made of flesh.

4. The amia, tunny, and labrax generally eat flesh, though they also eat sea-weed. The sargus feeds after the trigla when the last has buried itself in the mud and departed, for it has the power of burying itself, then the sargus comes and feeds and prevents all those that are weaker than itself from approaching. The fish called scarus is the only one which appears to ruminate like quadrupeds. Other fish appear to hunt the smaller ones with their mouths towards them, in this way they naturally swim; but the selachea, dolphins and cetacea throw themselves on their back to capture their prey, for their mouth is placed below them, for this reason the smaller ones escape, or if not they would soon be reduced in number; for the swiftness of the dolphin and its capacity for food appear incredible.

5. A few eels in some places are fed upon mud, and any kind of food which may be cast into the water, but generally they live upon fresh water, and those who rear eels take care that the water which flows off and on upon the shallows in which they live may be clear, where they make the eel preserves. For they are soon suffocated if the water is not clean, their gills being very small. For this reason those who seek for them disturb the water. In the Strymon they are taken about the time of the rising of the Pleiades. For the water is disturbed at this season by the mud which is stirred up by contrary winds, otherwise it is useless to attempt to obtain them. When dead, eels do not rise and float on the surface, like other fishes, for their stomach is small; a few of them are fat, but this is not usually the case.

6. When taken out of the water, they will live five or six days; if the wind is in the north they will live longer than if it is in the south. If they are removed from the ponds to the eel preserves during the summer they perish, but not if removed in the winter; neither will they bear violent changes, for if they are taken and plunged into cold water, they often perish in great numbers. They are suffocated also if kept in a small quantity of water. This takes place also in other fish, which are suffocated if kept in a small quantity of water which is never changed, like animals which breathe air when enclosed in a small quantity of air. Some eels live seven or eight years. Fresh-water fish make use of food, and devour each other, as well as plants and roots, or anything else that they can find in the mud; they generally feed in the night, and during the day dwell in deep holes. This is the nature of the food of fish.