ABSTRACT
IN case I should take up too lengthy a space in describing features which are all perhaps well known, I must finally state in the words of the blessed Ambrose, Hexameron, Bk V, Ch. 10, that ‘every single kind of fish has its own fixed dwelling-place, which none of its species leaves, nor any foreign type intrudes upon. Accordingly one species is born and bred in this arm of the sea, another in that one; they are never found intermingled, but a sort that proliferates in one area is lacking elsewhere. This region of the sea sustains mullet, that one, bass, a further one, rock-fish, yet another, lobsters. They do not enjoy the freedom to wander where they please, even though their passage is checked by no intervening mountain ranges or river channels. They are imprinted with a natural instinct, just as if each one were confined within the boundaries of its fatherland and mistrusted the idea of advancing out of range of the denizens of that country. Yet powerful men, for whom the sea is not enough and cannot satisfy their demands, share out the elements among themselves and construct fish-ponds and oyster-beds in order to furnish their banquets with a quantity of delicacies. 2 Some sorts of fish, however, change their locality, not through innate instability but from the necessity of spawning. Making provision at the proper and convenient time,
