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

Chapter 231: CHAP. 44. (28.)—FISHES WHICH HAVE NO BLOOD.—FISHES KNOWN AS SOFT 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. 44. (28.)—FISHES WHICH HAVE NO BLOOD.—FISHES KNOWN AS SOFT FISH.

The varieties of fish which we shall now mention are those which have no blood: they are of three kinds 2513—first, those which are known as “soft;” next, those which have thin crusts; and, lastly, those which are enclosed in hard shells. The soft fish are the loligo,2514 the sæpia,2515 the polypus,2516 and others of a similar nature. These last have the head between the feet and the belly, and have, all of them, eight feet: in the sæpia and the loligo two of these feet are very long 2517 and rough, and by means of these they lift the food to their mouth, and attach themselves to places in the sea, as though with an anchor; the others act as so many arms, by means of which they seize their prey.2518