Casting a squint-eye like the tunny.For tunnies seem to be dim-sighted of one eye. And therefore, when they enter the Euxine Sea, they coast along the land on the right side, and contrariwise when they come forth; prudently committing the care of their bodies to the best eye. But wanting arithmetic in order to the preservation of mutual love and society one with another, they arrive in such a manner to the perfection of that science, that, in regard they are extremely desirous to enjoy the society of each other, they always make up their whole fry into the form of a cube, and make a solid of the whole number consisting of six equal planes; and then they swim in such order as to present an equal front in each direction. So then, if the observer of the tunnies does but exactly take the number of the side that he sees, he knows the whole [p. 205] number of the shoal; well knowing that the depth is equal to the breadth and length.
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Moreover, the tunny is so sensible of the equinoxes
and solstices, that he teaches even men themselves without
the help of any astrological table. For where the winter
solstice overtakes him, there he remains till the vernal
equinox.
As for that same artifice of the cranes, that keep themselves waking by clutching a stone in their claws, how much
[p. 204]
more cunningly done is that of the dolphin, for whom it
is not lawful to stand still or to be out of motion. For it
is the nature of the dolphins to be always in motion; so
that, when they cease to move, they also cease to live.
And therefore when sleep seizes them, they raise their
bodies to the superficies of the sea, and so sinking down
again with their bellies upward, are carried along with the
tide till they touch again the shore. Wakened in that
manner, with an impetuous noise they mount upward again,
designing thus a kind of rest still intermixed with motion.
And the same thing is reported of the tunnies for the same
reason.
Having thus concluded their mathematical foreknowledge of the mutations of the sun, of which Aristotle
gives testimony, let me now relate their skill in arithmetic;
but first of all, their knowledge in optics, of which Aeschylus seems not to have been altogether ignorant. For
these are his words:
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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