The Boys' and Girls' Pliny: Being parts of Pliny's "Natural History" edited for boys and girls, with an IntroductionPliny, the Elder
History
The Boys' and Girls' Pliny: Being parts of Pliny's "Natural History" edited for boys and girls, with an Introduction
Pliny, the Elder
Animals -- Juvenile literature; Natural history -- Juvenile literature; Physical sciences -- Juvenile literature
Tunnies are among the most remarkable for their size; we have found one
weighing as much as fifteen talents (1200 pounds), the breadth of its
tail being five cubits and a palm. In some of the rivers, also, there
are fish of no less size, such, for instance, as the silurus of the
Nile, the isox of the Rhine, and the attilus of the Po, which, naturally
of an inactive nature, sometimes grows so fat as to weigh a thousand
pounds, and when taken with a hook, attached to a chain, requires a yoke
of oxen to draw it on land. An extremely small fish, which is known as
the clupea, attaches itself, with a wonderful tenacity, to a certain
vein in the throat of the attilus, and destroys it by its bite. The
silurus carries devastation with it wherever it goes, attacks every
living creature, and often drags beneath the water horses as they swim.
It is also remarkable, that in the river Main of Germany, a fish that
bears a very strong resemblance to the sea-pig, requires to be drawn out
of the water by a yoke of oxen; and in the Danube, it is taken with
large hooks of iron. In the Borysthenes, also, there is said to be a
fish of enormous size, the flesh of which has no bones or spines in it,
and is remarkable for its sweetness.
In the Ganges, a river of India, there is a fish found which they call
the platanista; it has the muzzle and the tail of the dolphin, and
measures sixteen cubits in length. Statius Sebosus says, a thing that is
marvellous in no small degree, that in the same river there are fishes
found, called worms; these have two gills, and are sixty cubits in
length; they are of an azure color, and have received their name from
their peculiar conformation. These fish, he says, are of such enormous
strength, that with their teeth they seize hold of the trunks of
elephants that come to drink, and so drag them into the water.
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