As for cleverness in attacking and catching prey, we may perceive subtle examples of it in many different species. The starfish,[Aristotle], v. 15 (548 a 7 f.), an interpolated passage; nor can we be certain that it was known to Plutarch. See also Mair on Oppian, ii. 181. for example, knowing that everything with which it comes in contact dissolves and liquefies, offers its body and is indifferent to the contact of those that overtake or meet it. You know, of course, the property of the torpedoOr electric ray or crampfish: for the ancient references see Thompson on Aristotle, ic. 37 (620 b 12-23); , pp. 169-172; Aelian, i. 36; ix. 14; Pliny, ix. 143; Mair, L.C.L. , p. lxix, and on ii. 56; iii. 149; Philo, 30 (p. 115); Antigonus, 48; Boulenger, , pp. 189 f.: not only does it paralyse all those who touch it, but even through the net creates a heavy numbness in the hands of the trawlers. And some who have experimented further with it report that if it is washed ashore alive and you pour water on it from above, you may perceive the numbness mounting to the hand and dulling your sense of touch by way of the water which, so it seems, suffers a change and is first infected.Cf. the upward infection of the basilisk, Pliny, viii. 78. Having, therefore, an innate sense of this power, it never makes a frontal attack or endangers itself; rather, it swims in a circle around its prey and discharges its shocks as if they were darts, thus poisoning first the water, then through the water the creature which can neither defend itself nor escape, being held fast as if by chains and frozen stiff.

The so-called fishermanThe fishing-frog, Lophius piscatorius L.: Aristotle, ix. 37 (620 b 12); Pliny, ix. 144; Mair on Oppian, ii. 86; Strömberg, , pp. 122 f. is known to many; he gets his name from his actions. Aristotle ix. 37 (622 a 1); cf. iv. 1 (524 a 3), iv. 6 (531 b 6); Pliny, ix. 83 ff.; Mair on Oppian, ii. 122. says that the cuttlefish also makes use of this stratagem: he lets down, like a fishing line, a tentacle from his neck which is naturally designed to extend to a great length when it is released, or to be drawn to him when it is pulled in. So when he espies a little fish, he gives it the feeler to bite and then by degrees imperceptibly draws it back toward himself until the prey attached to the arm is within reach of his mouth.

As for the octopus’ change of colour,Cf. Aristotle, ix. 37 (622 a 8); Mair on Oppian, ii. 233. Athenaeus, 316 f, 317 f, 513 d; Pliny, ix. 87; Antigonus, 25, 50; Aelian, i. 1; and Wellmann, , li, p. 40. PindarFrag. 43 Schroeder, 208 Turyn, 235 Bowra (p. 516, ed. Sandys L.C.L.); cf. . 916 c and Turyn’s references. has made it celebrated in the words To all the cities to which you resort Bring a mind like the changing skin of the seabeast; and Theognis215-216; cf. . 96 f, 916 c. There are many textual variants, but none alters the sense. likewise: Be minded like the octopus’ hue: The colour of its rock will meet the view.Or Keep a mind as multicoloured as the octopus, With the rock whereon it sits homologous (Andrews).

The chameleon,See Thompson on Aristotle, ii. 11 (503 b 2); Ogle on iv. 11 (692 a 22 ff.). See also Aelian, , iv. 33; and cf. Pliny, viii. 122 for the chameleon’s exclusive diet of air; nec alio quam aeris alimento. to be sure, is metachromatic, but not from any design or desire to conceal itself; it changes colour uselessly from fear, being naturally timid and cowardly. And this is consistent with the abundance of air in it, as TheophrastusFrag. 189 Wimmer (p. 225); Aristotle says merely, The change takes place when it is inflated by air. says; for nearly the whole body of the creature is occupied by its lungs,Which confirms Karsch’s emendation of Aristotle, ii. 11 (503 b 21); for Theophrastus and Plutarch must have had lungs and not membranes in their text of Aristotle. which shows it to be full of air and for this reason easily moved to change colour. But this same action on the part of the octopus is not an emotional response, but a deliberate change, since it uses this device to escape what it fears and to capture what it feeds on: by this deceit it can both seize the latter, which does not try to escape, and avoid the former, which proceeds on its way. Now the story that it eats its own tentaclesSee 965 e supra and the note; Pliny, ix. 87; 1059 e, 1098 e, fr. 53 (Bernardakis, vol. VII, p. 77). is a lie, but it is true that it fears the moray and the conger. It is, in fact, maltreated by them; for it cannot do them harm, since they slip from its grasp. On the other hand, when the crawfishThe langouste as distinguished from the homard; see Aelian, i. 32; ix. 25; x. 38; Thompson on Aristotle, viii. 2 (590 b 16); , pp. 102 ff.; Pliny, ix. 185; Antigonus, 92. has once got them in its grasp, it wins the victory easily, for smoothness is no aid against roughness; yet when the octopus has once thrust its tentacles inside the crawfish, the latter succumbs. And so Nature has created this cycleThe octopus is worsted by the moray and the conger, which in turn are defeated by the crawfish, which (to complete the cycle) becomes the octopus’ prey. The whole engagement is graphically portrayed in Oppian, ii. 253-418. For Nature’s battle see, e.g., Pliny, viii. 79. and succession of mutual pursuit and flight as a field for the exercise and competitive practice of adroitness and intelligence.

We have, to be sure, heard AristotimusCf. 972 a supra. Valentine Rose, curiously enough, emended to Aristotle (see ix. 6, 612 b 4) and included this passage in Frag. 342. See further Mair on Oppian, ii. 226. telling us about the hedgehog’s foreknowledge of the winds; and our friend also admired the V-shaped flight of cranes.Cf. 967 b supra. I can produce no hedgehog of Cyzicus or Byzantium,Perhaps he is learnedly confuting Aristotimus (972 a supra) by drawing on Aristotle. but instead the whole body of sea-hedgehogs,i.e. the sea-urchin, regarded by the ancients as a sort of marine counterpart of the hedgehog because of the similar spines. which, when they perceive that storm and surf are coming, ballast themselves with little stonesCf. 967 b supra, of bees. in order that they may not be capsized by reason of their lightness or be swept away by the swell, but may remain fixed in position through the weight of their little rocks.

Again, the cranes’ change of flight against the windCf. 967 b supra. is not merely the action of one species: all fish generally have the same notion and always swim against wave and current, taking care that a blast from the rear does not fold back their scales and expose and roughen their bodies. For this reason they always present the prow of their bodies to the waves, for in that way head first they cleave the sea, which depresses their gills and, flowing smoothly over the surface, keeps down, instead of ruffling up, the bristling skin. Now this, as I have said, is common to all fish except the sturgeon,Probably usually the common sturgeon, Acipenser sturio: see Thompson, , pp. 62 f.; Aelian, viii. 28, speaks of it as a rare and sacred fish; see 981 d infra. Cf. Milton’s Ellops drear ( x. 525). which, they say, swims with wind and tide and does not fear the harrowing of its scales since the overlaps are not in the direction of the tail.

The tunnyCf. Aelian, ix. 42; Aristotle, viii. 13 (598 b 25 f.). is so sensitive to equinox and solstice that it teaches even men themselves without the need of astronomical tables; for wherever it may be when the winter solstice overtakes it, in that same place it stands and stays until the equinox. As for that clever device of the crane,See 967 c supra. the grasping of the stone by night so that if it falls, she may awake from sleep - how much cleverer, my friend, is the artifice of the dolphin, for whom it is illicit to stand still or to cease from motion.Reiske may have been right in suspecting a trimeter of unknown origin in these words. For its nature is to be ever activeCf. Aelian, xi. 22. The dolphin even nurses its young while in motion; Pliny, xi. 235; and cf. Aristotle, ii. 13 (504 b 21 ff.).: the termination of its life and its movement is one and the same. When it needs sleep, it rises to the surface of the sea and allows itself to sink deeper and deeper on its back, lulled to rest by the swinging motion of the ground swellAs it were, the cradle of the deep. until it touches the bottom. Thus roused, it goes whizzing up, and when it reaches the surface, again goes slack, devising for itself a kind of rest combined with motion.But see Pliny, x. 210, where it is reported that dolphins are actually heard snoring. And they say that tunnies do the same thing for the same reason.

Having just a moment ago given you an account of the tunny’s mathematical foreknowledge of the reversal of the sun, of which Aristotle viii. 13 (598 b 25). is a witness, I beg you to hear the tale of their arithmetical learning. But first, I swear, I must mention their knowledge of optics, of which AeschylusNauck, p. 96, frag. 308; Cf. Aelian, ix. 42. seems not to have been ignorant, for these are his words: Squinting the left eye like a tunny fish. They seem, indeed, to have poor sight in one eye. And it is for this reason that when they enter the Black Sea, they hug one bank on the right, and the otherSee Thompson on Aristotle, viii. 13 (598 b 19 ff.); , p. 84; Pliny, ix. 50. They follow the opposite shore when returning, thus keeping the same eye towards the land. when they are going out, it being very prudent and sagacious of them always to entrust the protection of themselves to the better eye. Now since they apparently need arithmetic to preserve their consociation and affection for each other, they have attained such perfection of learning that, since they take great pleasure in feeding and schooling together,Cf. Aristotle, ix. 2 (610 b 1 f.); Aelian, xv. 3, 5. they always form the school into a cube, making it an altogether solid figure with a surface of six equal plane sides; then they swim on their way preserving their formation, a square that faces both ways. Certainly a hooerA watcher posted on a tall mast to warn fishermen of the approach of a shoal and to give a count. See Thompson on Aristotle, iv. 10 (537 a 19); , p. 87; Gow on Theocritus, iii. 26; Mair on Oppian, iii. 638. Accounts of the ancient tunny fishery are given by Thompson, , pp. 84-88; Pace, , N.S. xii (1931/2), pp. 326 ff.; and Rhode, , Suppb. xviii (1900), pp. 1-78. An account of the ancient and the modern tunny fishery is given by Parona, , no. 68, 1919. watching for tunnies who counts the exact number on the surface at once makes known the total number of the shoal, since he knows that the depth is equal one to one with the breadth and the length.

Schooling together has also given the bonitos their name of amia Similarly, Athenaeus (vii. 278 a; Cf. 324 d) quotes Aristotle as defining amia as not solitary, i.e. running in schools. Actually the term is probably foreign, perhaps of Egyptian origin (Cf. Thompson, , p. 13). and I think this is true of year-old tunnies as well.Plutarch takes pelamys to be compound of pelein to be and hama with, with references to their running in schools. It was also anciently presumed to be a compound of pelos mud and myein be shut in or enclosed, because of its habit of hiding in the mud (Cf. Aristotle, 599 b 18; Pliny, ix. 47). Most scholars now regard it as a loan from the Mediterranean substratum, although Thompson (, p. 198) suggests that it may be of Asiatic origin, since it was used especially of the tunny in the Black Sea. As for the other kinds which are observed to live in shoals in mutual society, it is impossible to state their number. Let us rather, therefore, proceed to examine those that have a special partnership, that is, symbiosis. One of these is the pinna-guard,See Thompson, , p. 202. over which ChrysippusVon Arnim, ii, p. 208, frag. 729 b (Athenaeus, 89 d). Cf. also fragments 729, 729 a, and 730. On the place of the pinna in Chrysippus’ theology see A. S. Pease, xxxiv (1941), p. 177. spilled a very great deal of ink; indeed it has a reserved seat in every single book of his, whether ethical or physical.Cf. . 1035 b, 1038 b. Chrysippus has obviously not investigated the sponge-guardA little crab that lives in the hollow chambers of a sponge. See Thompson, loc. cit. ; otherwise he could hardly have left it out. Now the pinna-guard is a crab-like creature, so they say, who lives with the pinnaOn this bivalve shellfish see Thompson, , p. 200; Mair on Oppian, ii. 186. and sits in front of the shell guarding the entrance. It allows the pinna to remain wide open and agape until one of the little fish that are their prey gets within; then the guard nips the flesh of the pinna and slips inside; the shell is closed and together they feast on the imprisoned prey.

The sponge is governed by a little creature not resembling a crab, but much like a spider.Nevertheless, it is a crab, Typton spongicola. Now the spongeCf. Aelian, viii. 16; Aristotle, v. 16 (548 a 28 ff.); Pliny, ix. 148; Antigonus, 83; Mair on Oppian, v. 656; Thompson, , pp. 249-250. is no lifeless, insensitive, bloodless thing; though it clings to the rocks,Cf. W. Jaeger, , p. 116, n. 1. as many other animals do, it has a peculiar movement outward and inward which needs, as it were, admonition and supervision. In any case it is loose in texture and its pores are relaxed because of its sloth and dullness; but when anything edible enters, the guard gives the signal, and it closes up and consumes the prey. Even more, if a man approaches or touches it, informed by the scratching of the guard, it shudders, as it were, and so closes itself up by stiffening and contracting that it is not an easy, but a very difficult, matter for the hunters to undercut it.

The purplefishSee Aristotle, v. 15 (546 b 19 ff.) quoted in Athenaeus, 88 d - 89 a; iii. 11 (761 b 32 ff.); Thompson, , pp. 209-218. lives in colonies which build up a comb together, like bees. In this the species is said to propagate; they catch at edible bits of oystergreen and seaweed that stick to shells, and furnish each other with a sort of periodic rotating banquet, as they feed one after another in series.