Note 2405 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Cuvier says that this fish held, as Pliny here states, the very highest place at the Roman tables, and was especially famous: First, because it was supposed to ruminate; in allusion to which, Ovid says, Halieut. l. 118, “But, on the other hand, some fishes extend themselves on the sands covered with weeds, as the scarus, which fish alone ruminates the food it has eaten.” Secondly, because, as Aristotle, B. viii. c. 2, and Ælian, B. i. c. 2, inform us, it lived solely on vegetables. Thirdly, because it had the faculty of producing a sound, as we learn from Oppian, Halieut. B. i. l. 134, and Suidas. Fourthly, for its salacious propensities, numbers being taken by means of a female attached to a string. Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. l. 78, and Ælian, B. i. c. 2. Fifthly, for its remarkable sagacity in affording assistance to another, when taken in the net; relative to which Ovid has the following curious passage, Halieut. l. 9, et seq. “The scarus is caught by stratagem beneath the waves, and at length dreads the bait fraught with treachery. It dares not strike the osiers with an effort of its head; but, turning away, as it loosens the twigs with frequent blows of its tail, it makes its passage, and escapes safely into the deep. Moreover, if perchance any kind scarus, swimming behind, sees it struggling within the osiers, he takes hold of its tail in his mouth, as it is thus turned away, and so it makes its escape.” Oppian, Halieut. B. iv. l. 40, and Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. i. c. 4, mention the same circumstance. We find that it was highly esteemed by the Roman epicures, even in early times, it being mentioned by Ennius and Horace. It was salted with the intestines in it; and Martial, B. xiii. Ep. 84, seems to speak of it as not being good to eat without them. It was a high-coloured fish, so much so, that Marcellus Sidetes called it “floridum,” while by Oppian it is called ποικίλον, or “variegated.” Rondelet thinks that it was one of spari or the labri, while Belon describes as such, a fish now unknown to zoologists, the tail of which, he says, has projecting spines. Aldrovandus calls it by the name of Scarus Cretensis, a species of the genus which at present goes by the name of Scarus, and which is distinguished by osseous jaw-bones, resembling in shape the beak of a parrot. Cuvier says, that on finding from Belon that the name σκάρος was still in use in the Ægean Sea, he ordered the various kinds of it to be brought to Paris; upon which he found that they exactly resembled the Scarus Cretensis of Aldrovandus, and he consequently has no doubt that it is essentially the same fish as the scarus of the Greeks and Romans. From the resemblance above stated, it is not uncommonly called the “parrot-fish;” while by some it has been thought to have resembled our char.