Now the fishermen, observing how that most fish avoided the casts of their hooks by cunning or by striving with the tackling, betook themselves to force,—as the Persians use to serve their enemies in their wars, That is, by joining hands and sweeping across an island. See the description in Herod. VI. 31, and σαγηνεύω in Liddell and Scott. (G.) — 
 making use of nets, that there might be no escape for those that were caught either by the help of reason or subtlety. Thus mullets and the fish called julides are taken with sweep-nets and drag-nets, as are also several other sorts of fish called mormuri, sargi, gobii, and labraces; those that are called casting-nets catch the mullet, the gilthead, and the scorpion fish; and therefore Homer calls this sort of net πανάγρα, or the all-sweeper. See Il . V. 487. And yet there are some fish that are too cunning for these nets. Thus the labrax, perceiving the drawing of the sweep-net, with the force of his body beats a hollow place in the mud, where he lays himself close till the net be gone over him. But as for the dolphin, when he finds himself taken and in the midst of the net, he remains there without being in the least perplexed, but falls to with a great deal of joy, and feasts upon the numerous fry within the meshes; but so soon as he comes near the shore, he bites his way through the net with his teeth and swims away. Or if he chance to be taken, the fishermen do him no other harm the first time, but only sew a sort of large bulrush to the finny crown upon his head, and so let him go. If they take him a second time, they punish him with stripes, well knowing him again by the prints of the needle. But that rarely happens. For having got pardon the first time, for the most part of them, they acknowledge the favor, and abstain from spoil for the future. Moreover, among the many examples that make evident the wariness of fish in avoiding the deceits and craft of the fishermen, it would not be convenient to pass by that of the cuttle-fish. For this fish, carrying near his neck at certain black and inky sort of liquor, so soon as he perceives himself discovered, throws that liquor forth, and darkens all the water round about him in such a manner 
 makes his escape; imitating therein Homer’s Deities, who, when they had a mind to save any of their heroes, hid them in an azure cloud. But of this enough. 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 
 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. Theognis, vs. 215. 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 
 and pursuing one another has Nature infused into them on purpose to exercise their subtlety and understanding. Then again we have heard Aristotimus relating how the land hedge-hog had a perception of the rising of the wind, and praising the trigonal flight of cranes. But for my part, I produce no particular hedge-hog of Cyzicus or Byzantium, but all the sea hedge-hogs in general; who, when they perceive a storm coming, ballast themselves with little stones, lest they should be overturned by reason of their lightness or carried away by the rolling of the waves, which they prevent by the weight of their little stones. On the other side, the cranes’ order in their flight against the wind is not of one sort. But this is a general notion among all fish, that they always swim against the waves and the tide, and always take care lest the wind being in their tails should force their fins from their backs, and leave their naked bodies exposed to the cold and other inconveniences; and therefore they still oppose the prows of their bodies against the waves. For that while they thus cleave the waves at the top, the sea keeps their fins close, and lightly flowing over the superficies of their bodies, becomes less burdensome, besides that it suffers not their scales to rise. This, I say, is common to all fish, except that fish which is called ellops; which, as they report, always swims with the wind and tide, not minding the erection or opening of the scales, which do not lie towards the tail, as in other fish. 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 
 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: 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 
 number of the shoal; well knowing that the depth is equal to the breadth and length. The fish amiae, which are another sort of tunnies, are so called, because they swim in shoals, as also the pelamydes or summer whitings. As for the rest that are seen to swim in shoals and to observe a mutual society, their number is not to be expressed. And therefore let us proceed to those that observe a kind of private and particular society one with another. Among which is the pinoteras of Chrysippus, upon which he has expended so much ink, that he gives it the precedency in all his books, both physical and ethical. For Chrysippus never knew the spongotera, for he would not have passed it over out of negligence. The pinoteras is so called, from watching the fish called pina or the nacre, and in shape resembles a crab; and cohabiting with the nacre, he sits like a porter at his shellside, which he lets continually to stand wide open until he spies some small fishes gotten within it, such as they are wont to take for their food. Then entering the shell, he nips the flesh of the nacre, to give him notice to shut his shell; which being done, they feed together within the fortification upon the common prey. The sponge is governed by a certain little creature more like a spider than a crab. For the sponge wants neither soul nor sense nor blood; but growing to the stones, as many other things do, it has a peculiar motion from itself and to itself, which nevertheless stands in need as it were of a monitor or instructor. For being otherwise of a substance loose and open, and full of holes and hollowness, by reason of the sloth and stupidity of it the sponge-watcher assists to give notice when any thing of food enters the cavities of it, at which time the sponge contracts itself and falls to feeding. But if a man approach and touch it, being nipped and admonished by the sponge-watcher, it seems to shudder 
 and shut up the body of it, closing and condensing it in such a manner as makes it no easy thing to cut it from the place where it grows. The purple shellfish also, called porphyrae, clustering together in a kind of mutual society, build up little combs for themselves like bees, wherein they are said to generate; and culling out the choicest substance of the moss and seaweed that stick to their shells, they seem to be in a circular commons among themselves, feeding the one upon the other’s nourishment.