CHAP. 9.—PLACES WHERE BITTER FISH ARE FOUND, SALT, OR SWEET.
Nor is it by any means the least surprising fact, that off the island of Pele,59 the town of Clazomenæ,60 the rock61 [of Scylla] in Sicily, and in the vicinity of Leptis in Africa,62 Eubœa, and Dyrrhachium,63 the fish are bitter. In the neighbourhood of Cephallenia, Ampelos, Paros, and the rocks of Delos, the fish are so salt by nature that they might easily be taken to have been pickled in brine. In the harbour, again, of the last-mentioned island, the fish are sweet: differences, all of them, resulting, no doubt, from the diversity64 of their food.
Apion says that the largest among the fishes is the sea-pig,65 known to the Lacedæmonians as the “orthagoriscos;” he states also that it grunts66 like a hog when taken. These accidental varieties in the natural flavour of fish—a thing that is still more surprising—may, in some cases, be owing to the nature of the locality; an apposite illustration of which is, the well-known fact that, at Beneventum67 in Italy, salted provisions of all kinds require68 to be salted over again.