Note 363 — Chapter IX · THE FIRST MENTION OF A FLY

“This idea of rumination,” according to Mr. Lones, op. cit., p. 237, “by the parrot wrasse (Scarus cretensis), which is clearly the Skaros of the Ancients, probably arose from its grazing or cropping off marine plants, and grinding them down, assisted by its having a strongly walled stomach” (cf. the functions of the gizzard of a fowl) with which, out of the myriads of fishes, the scarus and his tribe alone are endowed. On p. 162, “The stomach of a skaros is without a cæcum, and appears to be of far simpler form than that of most fishes.”

A trout often appears to ruminate, working its jaws quietly for a considerable time—perhaps this is merely to settle its last mouthful comfortably and to its liking. According to Banfield, in Dunk and other islands off Northern Australia, a fish, very similar to only even more brilliant in hues than the Pseudoscarus rivulatus, is able by the strength of its teeth (some sixty or seventy, set incisorlike) to pull from the rocks limpets (its chief food), which when steadfast can resist a pulling force of nearly 2000 times their own weight! It swallows molluscs and cockles whole, and by its wonderful gizzard grinds them fine. See Confessions of a Beachcomber (London, 1913), p. 156.