Moreover, among the many examples that make evident the wariness of fish in avoiding the deceits and craft of the fishermen, it would not be convenient to pass by that of the cuttle-fish. For this fish, carrying near his neck a certain black and inky sort of liquor, so soon as he perceives himself discovered, throws that liquor forth, and darkens all the water round about him in such a manner that, the fisherman losing sight of him, by that means he makes his escape; imitating therein Homer’s Deities, who, when they had a mind to save any of their heroes, hid them in an azure cloud. But of this enough. 27. Now for the extraordinary subtlety of fish in hunting and catching their own prey, we shall meet with several examples of it in several fish. Particularly the star-fish, understanding his own nature to be such that whatever he touches dissolves and liquefies, readily offers his body, and permits himself to be touched by all that come near him. You know yourself the property of the torpedo or crampfish, which not only benumbs all those that touch it, but also strikes a numbness through the very net into the hands of them that go about to take him. And some that have had greater experience of this fish report that, if it happen to fall alive upon the land, they that pour water upon it shall presently perceive a numbness seizing upon their hands and stupefying their feeling, through the water affected with the quality of the fish. And therefore, having an innate sense of this faculty, it never makes any resistance against any thing, nor ever is it in danger. Only swimming circularly about his prey, he shoots forth the effluviums of his nature like so many darts, and first infects the water, then the fish through the water, which is neither able to defend itself nor to escape, being (as it were) held in chains and frozen up. The fish called the fisherman is well known to many, who has his name given him from his manner of catching fish; whose art, as Aristotle writes, the cuttle-fish makes use of, for he lets down, like a line, a certain curl which Nature has given him, so ordered as to let it run out at length or draw it to him again, as he sees occasion. This, when he sees any of the lesser fish approach, he offers them to bite, and then by degrees pulls the curl nearer and nearer by virtue of the bait, till he has drawn his prey within the reach of his mouth. And as for the polypus’s changing his color, Pindar has made it famous in these words: In any city may that man expose His safety, who well knows Like sea-bred polypus to range, And vary color upon every change. In like manner Theognis: Change manners with thy friends, observing thus The many-colored, cunning polypus; Who let him stick to whatsoever rock, Of the same color does his body look.[91]