81. There is a fish called the coracinus. The coracini, which are caught at sea, says Icesius, contain but little nourishment; but they are easily secreted, and have a moderate supply of good juice. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that "it happens to nearly all fish to have a rapid growth, and this is the case, in no small degree, with the coracinus; and he lays his eggs close to the land, in places full of weeds and moss." But Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Similitudes, says that the blacktail and the coracinus are much alike. But Numenius, in his Treatise on the Art of Fishing, says— It easily would attract the spotted coracinus. And perhaps the æoliæ mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Muses, may be the same as coracini. For Epicharmus says— Æoliæ, plotes, cynoglossi too. But, in his Hebe's Marriage, he speaks of the æoliæ as a different fish; for he says— There there were mussels, and the alphastic fish, And coracini like to coriander seed, Æoliæ, plotes too, and the cynoglossi. [Sidenote: FISH.] But Euthydemus, in his essay on Cured Fish, says that the coracinus is by many people called the saperda. And Heracleon the Ephesian has said much the same thing; and so has Philotimus, in his Cookery Book. But that the saperdas and the coracinus are both called the platistacus is affirmed by Parmeno the Rhodian, in the first book of his Culinary Doctrine. But Aristophanes, in his Telmessians, uses the expression "black-finned coracini." Pherecrates also uses the word in its diminutive form, in his Forgetful Man, where he says— Being with your κορακινίδια and μαινίδια. And Amphis says, in his Ialemus— Whoever eats a sea-born coracinus When he may have a grayling, is a fool. But the coracini of the Nile are very sweet and delicious in their flesh, as those who have tried them know; and they have got their name from continually moving their eyes (διὰ τὸ τὰς κόρας κινεῖν), and never ceasing. But the Alexandrians call them plataces, which is, more correctly speaking, the name of the whole genus. 82. There is also a fish called the cyprinus, or carp. He also, as Aristotle tells us, is a carnivorous and gregarious fish; and he has his tongue, not in the lower part of the mouth, but in the upper part. But Dorion, mentioning him in his list among the lake and river fish, writes thus: "A scaly fish, whom some people call the cyprinus."