Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/82

 breed in the Black Sea, but not anywhere else. Sophocles also mentions them, in his Shepherds:—

There, too, the foreign pelamys does winter, The stranger from the Hellespont. For she Doth come with many of her kind in summer To these cool waters of the Bosphorus.

110. Then there is the perch. He also is mentioned by Diocles; and Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Things Resembling one another, says that the perch, the canna, and the phycis are all nearly alike. And Epicharmus says—

The comaris, the sea-dog, and the cestra And variegated perch.

And Numenius, in his treatise on the Art of Fishing, says—

At one time perch, and at another strophades, Which keep around the rocks. The phycis too, Th' alphestes, and the red-flesh'd scorpion.

There is also the phycis. This also is mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding; and by Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Things Resembling one another; and by Numenius: all whose testimonies are at hand. Aristotle, in his book upon Animals and their Properties, says that the phycis is surrounded with prickles and spotted. But the perch is marked with lines, and with bars running in an oblique direction. And there is a proverb also, "The perch follows the black-tail."

111. We have also the needle-fish. This also is mentioned by Epicharmus, who says—

The oxyrhynchi, and the needle-fish, And the hippuri.

But Dorion, in his work on Fish, says—"The belone, which they also call the needle-fish." Aristotle too, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, calls this fish the belone. But, in his book on Animals and their Properties, or else in his work on Fishes, he calls it the needle-fish; and says that it has no teeth. And Speusippus calls it the belone.

112. There is also the rhinè. Dorion, in his book on Fishes, says that the rhinès are best at Smyrna; and that all the cartilaginous fish are especially good in the gulf of Smyrna. And Archestratus says—

And the far-famed Miletus does produce All cartilaginous fish in high perfection,