Note 2383 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Cuvier states that Pliny takes this name from Aristotle, and that Athenæus, B. vii., says that it is synonymous with the Greek name, κορύφαινη. He also informs us, that modern naturalists have applied these two names to the dorade of navigators, the lampuga of the Spaniards and Sicilians, the Coryphæna hippurus of Linnæus, but that it is not clear that it has been applied on sufficient grounds: as there is no trace whatever of either of the two ancient names on the coasts of the Mediterranean, and the ancient writers have given no sufficient characteristics of the coryphæna or hippurus. It was, we learn, of excellent flavour, and in the habit of springing out of the water, from which, Athenæus says, it received the name of “arneutes,” from ἀρνὸς, “a lamb.”