[384] Aristotle (according to Athen., VIII. 3) states that the _scarus_ and sea-hog are the only fishes that have any kind of voice, but in reality he (IV. 9) mentions five others, among which is the cuckoo-fish, who “whistle and grunt” (see Pliny, XI. 112; Oppian, I. 134-5). Athenæus errs, for Aristotle (_N. H._, IV. 9, 8) asserts that the Dolphin when out of the water “groans and cries”; while Pliny (IX. 7) says of the Dolphin, “Pro voce gemitus humano similis.” Aristotle expressly differentiates between the five mentioned fish and the Dolphin—for the former possess no lungs, windpipe, or pharynx, and so can produce no voice, only “sound,” while “the dolphin has a _voice_ and therefore utters vocal and vowel sounds, for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe.” [385] Someone may throw at me the sentence of Seleucus of Tarsus, who in the only English translation of Athenæus (by C. D. Yonge) is made to say (VII. 113), “The Scarus is the only fish which _never_ sleeps.” If Yonge had been faithful to the text (Schweighäuser’s) which he expressly states he had adopted, he would have omitted the οὐ, because it is in brackets and the editor expressly puts against it the note “Deest vulgo negativa particula,” and his accompanying Latin translation is “unum hunc ex omnibus piscibus dormire.” Kaibel (Leipzig, 1887) also brackets the οὐ, while Dindorf (1827) has no οὐ, bracketed or other. [386] Aristotle, _N. H._, II. 13; Pliny, XI. 61. Another instance of the carelessness of Athenæus—induced perhaps by his omnivorous reading—is to be found in the first line of VII. 113, “The Scarus, Aristotle says, has sharp or jagged teeth,” whereas a reference to _N. H._, II. 13, discloses that all fish _except_ the _scarus_ have sharp or jagged teeth, a statement which is confirmed by Rondolet. [387] Cf. Opp., IV. 40-64; Pliny, XXXII. 5; and Ovid, _Hal._, 9 ff. [388] Ælian, _N. H._, 12, 42. [389] Pliny, XXXII. 8. [390] _Ep._, 3, 13. [391] Cf. Suetonius, _Augustus_, c. 83. CHAPTER XI PLUTARCH: THE CHARGE AGAINST HIM OF CONTEMNING FISHING QUITE FALSE—CLEOPATRA’S FISHING—OPPIAN—THE TORPEDO FOR GOUT—ATHENÆUS Our next two authors, Plutarch (a little later than Martial) and Oppian (_c._ 170 A.D.), both wrote in Greek. Plutarch for centuries has been misrepresented and maligned as an opponent and contemptuous disdainer of fishing, but quite inaccurately. I am not of the class of writers who invest Nero with a halo, or canonise Clytæmnestra. I am no Knight of the Round Table on a quest to redeem lost characters, but I feel it a duty and a pleasure on behalf of Plutarch to fling down the glove and challenge his traducers to a duel _à outrance_. Modern English writers, “to the listening earth Repeat the story,”