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

Chapter 227: CHAP. 40. (24.)—VARIOUS KINDS OF FLAT FISH.

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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. 40. (24.)—VARIOUS KINDS OF FLAT FISH.

There is another kind of flat fish, which, instead of bones, has cartilage, such, for instance, as the raia,2481 the pastinaca,2482 the squatina,2483 the torpedo,2484 and those which, under their respective Greek names, are known as the ox,2485 the lamia,2486 the eagle,2487 and the frog.2488 In this number, also, the squali 2489 ought to be included, although they are not flat fish. Aristotle was the first to call these fish by the one generic name of σελάχη,2490 which he has given them: we, however, have no mode of distinguishing them, unless, indeed, we choose to call them the “cartilaginous” fishes. All these fish are carnivorous,2491 and feed lying on their backs, just as dolphins do, as already 2492 noticed; while the other fishes,2493 too, are oviparous, this one kind, with the exception of that known as the sea-frog, is viviparous, like the cetacea.2494