ABSTRACT
ARISTOTLE, who among researchers into natural history easily bears the crown, declares in Bk VIII, Ch. 13, of his work On Animals that it is almost a general instinct in fish to have fixed homes where through a natural inclination they normally reside and do not swim beyond them without some pressing reason. Yet he admits that various types of fish are found living in different seas, lakes, and rivers according to the time of year, sometimes changing their environment for the sake of richer pastures, or to escape severe heat and cold, or in order to foster their young more agreeably, as the sympathy implanted by Nature prompts them to do. Then again he states emphatically that different places, times, and diets produce different fishes in such a way that some kinds hold sovereignty in certain localities, others elsewhere, as I reported earlier in the last chapter of Bk XX. For example, off the island of Crete gobies and all species of rock-fish grow exceedingly fat, whereas when they are found in other areas their bodies are meagre. 1 This agrees with St Ambrose’s observations in Bk V of the Hexameron. Ch. 10, which I quoted in Ch. 40 of this book. In Bk IX, Ch. 18, Pliny also communicates some fine examples relevant to this passage. 2
