Note 2506 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 34; Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xii. c. 48. Rondelet is of opinion that this mæna was the fish still called menola by the people of Liguria and Rome. It was a fish little valued, and we find it called by Martial, “inutilis mæna,” B. xii. Epigr. 30. Cuvier says, that if it does not change from white to black, as Pliny states, its colours are much more lively in the spring. It also has an offensive smell at certain times, as is noticed by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. viii. c. 30, and to which Martial alludes in the above epigram. Ovid also mentions it as a fish of no value; held, in all probability, in the same degree of estimation as a sprat with us. It is, no doubt, the Sparus mæna of Linnæus.