Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK XXXII.<a id="note-link1" href="#note1">1</a> REMEDIES DERIVED FROM AQUATIC ANIMALS., CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET. <a href="#note-link1">1</a> It is in the last six Books of Pliny, and those only, we regret to say, that we are enabled to avail ourselves of the new readings of the Bamberg MS., which has been so admirably collated by M. Ian. In a vast number of passages previously looked upon as hopelessly corrupt, or else not at all suspected of being in a mutilated state, this MS. supplies words and clauses, the existence of which in the original was hitherto unknown; indeed by its aid the indefatigable Sillig has been enabled, if we may be allowed the term, almost to rewrite the last six Books of Pliny. From a perusal of these new readings, as Dr. Smith has justly remarked, we have reason to infer "that the text of the earlier Books is still in a very defective state, and that much of the obscurity of Pliny may be traced to this cause."</p>

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CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET.

Nor is it by any means the least surprising fact, that off the island of Pele,¹ the town of Clazomenæ,² the rock³ [of Scylla] in Sicily, and in the vicinity of Leptis in Africa,⁴ Eubœa, and Dyrrhachium,⁵ the fish are bitter. In the neighbourhood of Cephallenia, Ampelos, Paros, and the rocks of Delos, the fish are so salt by nature that they might easily be taken to have been pickled in brine. In the harbour, again, of the last-mentioned island, the fish are sweet: differences, all of them, resulting, no doubt, from the diversity⁶ of their food.

Apion says that the largest among the fishes is the seapig,⁷ known to the Lacedæmonians as the "orthagoriscos;" he states also that it grunts⁸ like a hog when taken. These accidental varieties in the natural flavour of fish—a thing that is still more surprising—may, in some cases, be owing to the nature of the locality; an apposite illustration of which is, the well-known fact that, at Beneventum⁹ in Italy, salted provisions of all kinds require¹⁰ to be salted over again.

1 See B. v. c. 38.

2 See B. v. c. 31, and B. xxxi. c. 43.

3 See B. iii. c. 14.

4 See B. v. cc. 3, 4.

5 See B. iii. cc. 16, 26.

6 Ajasson thinks that this may possibly be true to some small extent.

7 Identical with the fish called "orbis," already mentioned in c. 5 of this Book. Ajasson remarks that though these fish have been known to weigh as much as three hundred pounds, there are many others which grow to a larger size, the sturgeon, and the silurus, for instance.

8 Ajasson thinks that this notion may possibly have been derived from the name, which not improbably was given to it from the spongy and oleaginous nature of the flesh.

9 See B. iii. c. 16.

10 Owing, perhaps, to the moisture of the atmosphere.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.

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CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Ed.