Note 2443 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

“Marini mures.” Cuvier says, that according to Oppian, Halieut. B. v. c. 174, et seq., the sea-mice, small as they are, attack other fish, and offer resistance even to man himself. Their skin, he says, is very solid, and their teeth very strong. Theophrastus names them along with seals and birds, as feeding both on land and at sea. Cuvier is somewhat at a loss whether to pronounce them, with Dalechamps, to be a kind of turtle. If so, he considers that this would be the little turtle, Testudo coriacea of Linnæus, which is by no means uncommon in the Mediterranean. He suggests, however, that there are equal grounds for taking it to be the Flasco psaro, or Tetrodon lineatus of Linnæus.