Page:An Introduction to the Study of Fishes.djvu/27

Rh stomachic dilatation. Pyloric coeca are close to the stomach, variable in number; there are even some, like the majority of the cartilaginous fishes, which have none whatever. Two bodies are situated along the spine, which have the function of testicles, and open towards the vent, and which are much enlarged in the spawning season. The scales become harder with age. Not being provided with lungs, they have no voice, but several can emit grunting sounds. They sleep like other animals. In the majority the females exceed the males in size; and in the Rays and Sharks the male is distinguished by an appendage on each side of the vent."

Aristotle's information on the habits of fishes, their migrations, mode and time of propagation, utility, is, as far as it has been tested, surprisingly correct. Unfortunately, only too often we lack the means of recognising the species of which he gives a description. His ideas of specific distinction were as vague as those of the fishermen whose nomenclature he adopted; it never occurred to him that such popular names are subject to change, or may be entirely lost with time, and the diiftculty of deciphering his species is further increased by the circumstance that popular names are often applied by him to the same fish, or that different stages of growth are designated by distinct names. The number of fishes known to Aristotle seems to have been about 115, all of which are inhabitants of the Ægean Sea.

That one man should have discovered so many truths, and formed so sure a base for Zoology, is less surprising than the fact that for about eighteen centuries a science which seemed to offer particular attractions to men gifted with power of observation, was no farther advanced. Yet this is the case. Aristotle's disciples, as well as his successors, remained satisfied to be his copiers or commentators, and to collect fabulous stories or vague notions. With very few exceptions (such as Ausonius, who wrote a small poem, in which he describes