Having now completed our exposition of the properties which belong to the aquatic productions, it would appear by no means foreign to my purpose to give a list of the various animated beings which inhabit the seas; so many as these are in number, of such vast extent, and not only making their way into the interior of the land to a distance of so many miles, but also surrounding the exterior of it to an extent almost equal to that of the world itself. These animals, it is generally considered, embrace one hundred and seventy-six different429 species, and it will be my object to set them forth, each by its distinct name, a thing that cannot possibly be done in reference to the terrestrial animals and the birds.

For, in fact, we are by no means acquainted with all the wild beasts or all the birds that are to be found in India, Æthiopia, Scythia, or the desert regions of the earth; and even of man himself there are numerous varieties, which as yet we have been unable430 to make ourselves acquainted with. In addition, too, to the various countries above mentioned, we have Taprobane431 and other isles of the Ocean, about which so many fabulous stories are related. Surely then, every one must allow that it is quite impossible to comprise every species of animal in one general view for the information of mankind. And yet, by Hercules! in the sea and in the Ocean, vast as it is, there exists nothing that is unknown to us,432 and, a truly marvellous fact, it is with those things which Nature has concealed in the deep that we are the best acquainted!

To begin then with the monsters433 that are found in this element. We here find sea-trees,434 physeters,435 balænæ,436 pistrices,437 tritons,438 nereids,439 elephants,440 the creatures known as sea-men,441 sea-wheels,442 orcæ,443 sea-rams,444 musculi,445 other fish too with the form of rams,446 dolphins,447 sea-calves,448 so celebrated by Homer,449 tortoises450 to minister to our luxury, and beavers, so extensively employed in medicine,451 to which class belongs the otter,452 an animal which we nowhere find frequenting the sea, it being only of the marine animals that we are speaking. There are dog-fish,453 also, drinones,454 cornutæ,455 swordfish,456 saw-fish,457 hippopotami458 and crocodiles,459 common to the sea, the land, and the rivers; tunnies460 also, thynnides, siluri,461 coracini,462 and perch,463 common to the sea only and to rivers.

To the sea only, belong also the acipenser,464 the dorade,465 the asellus,466 the acharne,467 the aphye,468 the alopex,469 the eel,470 the araneus,471 the boca,472 the batia,473 the bacchus,474 the batrachus,475 the belonæ,476 known to us as “aculeati,”477 the balanus,478 the corvus,479 the citharus, the least esteemed of all the turbots, the chalcis,480 the cobio,481 the callarias,482 which would belong to the genus of the aselli483 were it not smaller; the colias,484 otherwise known as the fish of Parium485 or of Sexita,486 this last from a place of that name in Bætica its native region, the smallest, too, of the lacerti;487 the colias of the Mæotis, the next smallest of the lacerti; the cybium,488 (the name given, when cut into pieces, to the pelamis489 which returns at the end of forty days from the Euxine to the Palus Mæotis); the cordyla490—which is also a small pelamis, so called at the time when it enters the Euxine from the Palus Mæotis—the cantharus,491 the callionymus492 or uranoscopus, the cinædus, the only493 fish that is of a yellow colour; the cnide, known to us as the sea-nettle;494 the different kinds of crabs,495 the striated chemæ,496 the smooth chemæ, the chemæ belonging to the genus of pelorides,497 all differing in the variety of their colours and in the roundness of the shells; the chemæ glycymarides,498 still larger than the pelorides; the coluthia or coryphia;499 the various kinds of shellfish, among which we find the pearl oysters,500 the cochleæ,501 (belonging to which class are the pentadactyli,502) the helices,503 by some known as actinophori, the spokes504 on whose shells are used for musical purposes;505 and, in addition to these, the round cochleæ, the shells of which are used in measuring oil, as also the sea-cucumber,506 the cynopos,507 the cammarus,508 and the cynosdexia.509

Next to these we have the sea-dragon,510 a fish which, according to some, is altogether distinct from the dracunculus,511 and resembles the gerricula in appearance, it having on the gills a stickle which points towards the tail and inflicts a wound like that of the scorpion512 when the fish is handled—the erythinus,513 the echeneïs,514 the sea-urchin,515 the sea-elephant, a black kind of crayfish, with four forked legs, in addition to two arms with double joints, and furnished, each of them, with a pair of claws, indented at the edge; the faber,516 also, or zæus, the glauciscus,517 the glanis,518 the gonger,519 the gerres,520 the galeos,521 the garos,522 the hippos,523 the hippuros,524 the hirundo,525 the halipleumon,526 the hippocampus,527 the hepar,528 the ictinus529 and the iulis.530 There are various kinds also of lacerti,531 the springing loligo,532 the crayfish,533 the lantern-fish,534 the lepas,535 the larinus, the sea-hare,536 and the sea-lion,537 with arms like those of the crab, and in the other parts of the body like the cray-fish.

We have the surmullet538 also, the sea black-bird,539 highly esteemed among the rock-fish; the mullet,540 the melanurus,541 the mæna,542 the mæotis,543 the muræna,544 the mys,545 the mitulus,546 the myiscus,547 the murex,548 the oculata,549 the ophidion,550 the oyster,551 the otia,552 the orcynus—the largest of all the pelamides553 and one that never returns to the Palus Mæotis, like the tritomus554 in appearance, and best when old—the orbis,555 the orthagoriscus,556 the phager,557 the phycis558 a rock-fish, the pelamis,559 (the largest kind of which is called “apolectum,”560 and is tougher than the tritomus) the sea-pig,561 the phthir,562 the sea-sparrow,563 the pastinaca,564 the several varieties of the polyp,565 the scallop,566 which is larger and more swarthy in summer than at other times, and the most esteemed of which are those of Mitylene,567 Tyndaris,568 Salonæ,569 Altinum,570 the island of Chios, and Alexandria in Egypt; the small scallop,571 the purple,572 the pegris,573 the pinna,574 the pinnotheres,575 the rhine576 or squalus of the Latins, the turbot,577 the scarus,578 a fish which holds the first rank at the present day; the sole,579 the sargus,580 the squilla,581 the sarda582—such being the name of an elongated pelamis583 which comes from the Ocean; the scomber,584 the salpa,585 the sorus,586 the scorpæna,587 the sea-scorpion,588 the solas,589 the sciæna,590 the sciadeus,591 the scolopendra,592 the smyrus,593 the sæpia,594 the strombus,595 the solen,596 otherwise known as the aulos, donax, onyx or dactylus; the spondylus,597 the smaris,598 the starfish,599 and the sponges.600 There is the sea-thrush601 also, famous among the rock-fish, the thynnis,602 the thranis, by some writers known as the xiphias;603 the thrissa,604 the torpedo,605 the tethea,606 the tritomus, a large kind of pelamis,607 which admits of being cut into three cybia;608 the shells of Venus,609 the grape-fish,610 and the xiphias.611