Note 2427 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Or Jove-fish. Cuvier says that Gillius has “applied the name of “faber” to the dory, or fish of Saint Peter, and has stated that the Dalmatians, who call it the “forga,” pretend that they can find in its bones all the instruments of a forge. After him, other modern naturalists have called the same fish Zeus faber; but nothing, Cuvier says, goes to prove that the dory is the fish so called by the ancients. The epithet even of “rare,” given to it by Ovid, Halieut. l. 112, is far from applicable to the dory, which is common enough in the Mediterranean. If, indeed, the χαλκεὺς of the Greeks were the same as the “faber,” as, indeed, we have reason to suppose, it would be something in favour of the dory, as Athenæus, B. vii., says that the χαλκεὺς is of a round shape: but then, on the other hand, Oppian, Halieut. B. v. l. 135, ranks it among the rock-fish which feed near rocks with herbage on them; while the dory is found only in the deep sea.