Note 2380 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Or pagrus. This passage is from Aristotle, Hist. Nat. B. viii. c. 19. Cuvier says that there are several names of fish, known in the Mediterranean at the present day, as being from the φάγρος of Aristotle, such as the pagri or pageau, the fragolino, &c. names of a fish of a red silvery hue, the Sparus erythrinus of Linnæus, his Sparus pagrus being another species. The modern Greeks also call it φάγρος, the best proof of its identity with the phagros of Aristotle, or pager or phagrus of Pliny. This phagrus, Cuvier says, was not improbably the same as the modern pagre, as their characteristics quite agree, so far as those of the ancient phagrus are described. It is of red colour, and we find Ovid (Halieut. l. 108,) speaking of the “rutilus pagur,” and it was, according to Aristotle, B. viii. c. 13, caught equally out at sea and near the shore, and had stones in the head, B. viii. c. 19, or, in other words, stony bodies of large size in the labyrinthine cavities of the ear. Oppian, Halieut. B. iii. l. 185, says that the channe forms a delicate morsel for the pagrus, which shows that it was of considerable size; and several authors quoted by Athenæus, B. vii., give it the epithet of “great.” Hicesius says, in the same place, that it resembles the erythrus, the chromis, the anthias, and other fish of very different character among themselves; but it is only in relation to the flesh that he makes these comparisons, so that we are unable to come to any conclusion as to the form. But we find Numenius, also quoted by Athenæus, speaking of the φάγρον λοφίην, the “crested phagrus,” possibly in allusion to the height of the neck. The properties of its flesh are, if possible, still less characteristic. Hicesius says that it is of sweet flavour and nourishing, but rather astringent. Galen, however, says that it is hard, and difficult of digestion, when old. Archestratus looks upon its head as a delicacy, but thinks so little of the other parts, that they are not, in his opinion, worth carrying away. He was, however, well known to be much too refined in his notions of epicurism.