5. Of all kinds of water, summer showers agree best with fish; and if the spring, summer, and autumn have been wet, a fine winter. And to speak generally, if the season is healthy for mankind, it will be the same for fish. They do not thrive in cold places. Those which have a stone in their head, as the chromis, labrax, sciœna, and phagrus, suffer most in the winter; for the refrigeration of the stone causes them to freeze and be driven on shore. 6. Abundant rain confers health on most fish; but the contrary is the case with the mullet and cephalus, which some call marinus; for if there is a great supply of rain water, they soon become blind. The cephali are particularly liable to this disease in the winter; for their eyes become white. When captured they are lean, and at last perish altogether. They do not, however, appear to suffer so much from the wet as from the cold; for in other places, and especially in the swamps in the neighbourhood of the Argive Nauplia, many are found blind in severe weather, and many also are taken with white eyes. 7. The chrysophrys also suffers from the cold; the arachnas from the heat, which makes it lean. Dry seasons agree better with the coracinus than with any other fish, and for this reason, because it is generally warm in dry weather. Particular localities are favourable to different species, as either the neighbourhood of the land, or the deep waters to those which only frequent one of these localities, or particular places to those which frequent both. There are especial places in which each of them thrive; but, generally speaking, they prefer places full of sea weed; for those which inhabit places with plenty of food are generally found to be fatter; for those that eat fuci obtain plenty of food, while those that are carnivorous find an abundant supply of fish. 8. They are also affected by northern and southern aspects, for the long fish thrive best in northern situations, and in northern places in the summer time more long fish than flat fish are taken in the same locality. The tunny and xiphia suffer from the œstrus, at the rising of the dog-star, for both these fish at this season have beneath their fins a little worm which is called œstrus, which resembles a scorpion, and is about the size of a spider; they suffer so much from this torment that the xiphias leaps out of the sea as high as the dolphin, and in this manner frequently falls upon ships. 9. The tunny delights in warm weather more than any other fish, and they resort to the sand near the sea-shore for the sake of the warmth, and there they float on the surface; the small fish are safe because they are overlooked, for large fish pursue those of a moderate size. The greater portion of the ova and melt are destroyed ... by the heat, for whatever they touch they entirely destroy.