LIBER IX · CAPUT 47
FISHES WHICH ARE ENCLOSED IN A STONY SHELL—SEA ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO SENSATION—-OTHER ANIMALS WHICH LIVE IN THE MUD
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
certissima est securitas vidisse pianos pisces, quia numquam sunt ubi maleficae bestiae, qua de causa urinantes sacros appellant eos.
Silicea testa inclusis fatendum est nullum esse sensum, ut ostreis. multis eadem natura quae frutici, ut holothuriis, pulmonibus, stellis. adeoque nihil non gignitur in mari, ut cauponarum etiam aestiva animalia, pernici molesta saltu aut quae capillus maxime celat, existant et circumglobata escae saepe extrahantur, quae causa somnum piscium in mari noctibus infestare existimatur. quibusdam vero ipsis innascuntur, quo in numero chalcis accipitur.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
It is the surest sign of safety to see flat-fish, which never frequent the spots where these noxious monsters are found: and it is for this reason that the divers call them sacred.
Those animals, however, it must be admitted, which lie enclosed in a stony shell, have no sensation whatever—such as the oyster, for instance. Many, again, have the same nature as vegetables; such as the holothuria, the pulmones, and the sea-stars. Indeed, I may say that there is no land production which has not its like in the sea; no, not even those insects which frequent our public-houses in summer, and are so troublesome with their nimble leaps, nor yet those which more especially make the human hair their place of refuge; for these are often drawn up in a mass collected around the bait. This, too, is supposed to be the reason why the sleep of fish is sometimes so troubled in the night. Upon some fish, indeed, these animals breed as parasites: among these, we find the fish known as the chalcis.