Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/184

 165 in the Indian Sea, and these five times larger than the largest elephant. A rib of this mon* strous fish measures as much as twenty cubits, and its lip fifteen cubits. The fins near the gills are each of them so much as seven cubits in breadth. The shell-fish called Kerukes are also met with, and the purple-fish of a size that would admit it easily into a gallon mea- sure, while on the other hand the shell of the sea-urchin is large enough to cover com- pletely a measure of that size. But fish in India attain enormous dimensions, especially the sea- wolves, the thunnies, and the golden-eyebrows. I hear also that at the season when the rivers are swollen, and with their fall and boisterous flood deluge all the land, the fish are carried into the fields, where they swim and wander to and fro, ejen in shallow water, and that when the rains which flood the rivers cease, and the waters re- tiring from the land resume their natural chan- nels, then in the low-lying tracts and in flat and marshy grounds, where we may be sure the so-called Nine are wont to have some watery re- cesses (KoXirovff), fish even of eight cubits' length are found, which the husbandmen themselves catch as they swim about languidly on the surface of the water, which is no longer of a depth they can freely move in, but in fact so very shallow that it is vdth the utmost difficulty they can live in it at all. (13.) The following fish are also indigenous Digitized by Google