The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 212: CHAP. 25.—FISHES WHICH CONCEAL THEMSELVES DURING THE SUMMER; THOSE WHICH ARE INFLUENCED BY THE STARS.

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About This Book

The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 25.—FISHES WHICH CONCEAL THEMSELVES DURING THE SUMMER; THOSE WHICH ARE INFLUENCED BY THE STARS.

Other fishes,2391 again, are unable to bear the heat of summer, and lie concealed during the sixty days of the hottest weather of midsummer; such, for instance, as the glaucus,2392 the asellus,2393 and the dorade.2394 Among the river-fish, the silurus 2395 is affected by the rising of the Dog-star, and at other times it is always sent to sleep by thunder. The same is also believed to be the case with the sea-fish called cyprinus.2396 In addition to this, the whole sea is sensible 2397 of the rising of this star, a thing which is more especially to be observed in the Bosporus: for there sea-weeds and fish are seen floating on the surface, all of which have been thrown up from the bottom.