FISH.
97. There is also a fish called the orphos ([Greek: orphôs]); but the
word is also spelt with an [Greek: o] ([Greek: orphos], as Pamphilus tells us.
But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, where
he says that the growth of most fish is very rapid, says, "The
orphos also grows to a large fish from a little one with great
rapidity; but he is a carnivorous fish, with serrated teeth,
and of a solitary disposition. And there is this peculiarity in
him, that it cannot be ascertained what means he has of propagating
his species, and that he can live a long time after he
has been cut in pieces. He is also one of those fish which
bury themselves in holes during the winter season, and he is
fond of keeping close to the land, rather than of going into
the deep sea; but he does not live more than two years. And
Numenius, speaking of this fish, says—
Now with such baits as these it is not hard
To draw the lengthy scorpion from his bed,
Or the rough orphus: for they're easily caught.
And in another place he says—
The grayling, or the sea-born race of orphi,
Or the dark flesh'd sea-blackbird.
But Dorion says that the young orphus is called by some the orphacines. And Archippus says, in his Fishes,—
The orphus came to them, the priest o' the god.
And Cratinus says, in his Ulysses,—
A hot slice of the newly taken orphus.
And Plato, in his Cleophon, says—
For he has brought you here, old dame, to dwell,
A rotten food for orphi and for phagri,
And other gristly boneless fish around.
And Aristophanes, in his Wasps, says—
If a man be inclined to purchase orphi,
And likes to leave alone the membrades.
Now this word [Greek: orphôs], in the nominative case singular, is accented with an acute on the ultima by the Attic writers; so Archippus writes the word, in his Fishes, in the lines which I have already quoted; and Cratinus also, in his Ulysses, as I have above quoted it, writes—
[Greek: temachos orphô chliaron].
98. There is also a fish called orcynus. Dorion, in his treatise on Fishes, says that the orcyni come from the sea near the Pillars of Hercules to the waters on our coasts; on