De sollertia animalium

ARISTOTIMUS. The court is open for the litigants---[*](Here follows a long lacuna not indicated in the mss., the contents of which cannot even be conjectured.) And there are some fish that waste their milt by pursuing the female while she is laying her eggs.[*](The milt is, of course, for the fertilization of the eggs, as Aristotimus should have learned from Aristotle (e.g., Historia Animal. vi. 13, 567 b 3 ff.))

There is also a type of mullet called the grayfish[*](On this type Cf. also Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 2 (591 a 23) and in Athenaeus, vii. 307 a, where variants of the name occur. The same name was applied to a type of shark as well as to a type of mullet, an apt application in both instances (Andrews).) which feeds on its own slime[*](See Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 643 (Cf. iii. 432 ff.). Pliny (Nat. Hist. ix. 128, 131) tells the same story of the purplefish.); and the octopus sits through the winter devouring himself,

In fireless home and domicile forlorn,[*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 524; Cf. 978 f infra and the note; Mor. 1059 e; Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 27, xiv. 26. See also Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 2 (591 a 5); Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 244; Lucilius, frag. 925 Warmington (L.C.L.).)

so lazy or insensible or gluttonous, or guilty of all of these charges, is he. So this also is the reason, again, why Plato[*](Laws, 823 d-e.) in his Laws enjoined, or rather prayed, that his young men might not be seized by a love for sea hunting. For there is no exercise in bravery or training in skill or anything that contributes to strength or fleetness or agility when men endure toil in contests with bass or conger or parrot-fish; whereas, in the chase on land, brave animals give play to the courageous and danger-loving qualities of those matched against them, crafty animals sharpen the wits and cunning of their attackers, while swift ones train the strength and perseverance of their pursuers. These are the qualities which have made hunting a noble sport, whereas there is nothing glorious about fishing. No, and there’s not a god, my friend, who has allowed himself to be called conger-killer, as Apollo is wolf-slayer, [*](For Apollo’s connexion with wolves see Aelian, De Natura Animal. x. 26; al. ) or surmullet-slayer, as Artemis[*](On Artemis, The Lady of Wild Beasts (Iliad, xxi. 470), see Mnemosyne, 4th series, iv (1951), pp. 230 ff.) is deer-slaying. [*](This accusation is answered in 983 e-f infra.) And what is surprising in this when it’s a more glorious thing for a man to have caught a boar or a stag or, so help me, a gazelle or a hare than to have bought one ? As for your tunny[*](See 980 a infra.) and your mackerel and your boriito ! They’re more honourable to buy than to catch oneself. For their lack of spirit or of any kind of resource or cunning has made the sport dishonourable, unfashionable, and illiberal.