Now for the extraordinary subtlety of fish in hunting
and catching their own prey, we shall meet with several
examples of it in several fish. Particularly the starfish,
understanding his own nature to be such that whatever he
touches dissolves and liquefies, readily offers his body, and
permits himself to be touched by all that come near him.
You know yourself the property of the torpedo or cramp
fish which not only benumbs all those that touch it, but
also strikes a numbness through the very net into the hands
of them that go about to take him. And some that have
had greater experience of this fish report that, if it happen
to fall alive upon the land, they that pour water upon it
shall presently perceive a numbness seizing upon their
hands and stupefying their feeling, through the water
affected with the quality of the fish. And therefore, having an innate sense of this faculty, it never makes any resistance against any thing, nor ever is it in danger. Only
swimming circularly about his prey, he shoots forth the
effluviums of his nature like so many darts, and first infects
the water, then the fish through the water, which is neither
able to defend itself nor to escape, being (as it were) held
in chains and frozen up.
The fish called the fisherman is well known to many,
who has his name given him from his manner of catching
fish; whose art, as Aristotle writes, the cuttle-fish makes
use of, for he lets down, like a line, a certain curl which
Nature has given him, so ordered as to let it run out at
length or draw it to him again, as he sees occasion. This,
when he sees any of the lesser fish approach, he offers
them to bite, and then by degrees pulls the curl nearer and
nearer by virtue of the bait, till he has drawn his prey
within the reach of his mouth. And as for the polypus's
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changing his color, Pindar has made it famous in these
words:
In any city may that man expose
His safety, who well knows
Like sea-bred polypus to range,
And vary color upon every change.
In like manner Theognis:
Change manners with thy friends, observing thus
The many-colored, cunning polypus;
Who let him stick to whatsoever rock,
Of the same color does his body look.
1
It is true the chameleon changes color, not out of any
design or to conceal himself, but out of fear, being naturally timorous and trembling at every noise he hears. And
this is occasioned by the extraordinary abundance of
breath which he enjoys, as Theophrastus affirms. For the
whole body of this creature wants but little of being nothing else but lungs; which demonstrates him to be full of
spirits, and consequently apt to change. But this same
change of the polypus is no product of any affection of
the mind, but a kind of action. For he changes on purpose, making use of this artifice to escape what he fears,
and to get the food which he lives by. For by fraud, those
things that he will take never avoid him, and those things
he will escape pass him by without taking any notice of
him. For that he devours his own claws is an untruth,
but that he is afraid of the lamprey and conger is certain;
for by these he is ill treated, not being able to return them
any injury, by reason of their being so slippery. Though
on the other side the crawfish, having once got them within
his claws, holds them with ease. For slenderness affords
no help against roughness; but when the polypus comes
to thrust his horns into the body of the crawfish, then also
the crawfish dies. And this same vicissitude of avoiding
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and pursuing one another has Nature infused into them on
purpose to exercise their subtlety and understanding.
