Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/106

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again, bears him with the reflux back into the sea. And when he is awake on the dry land then he is on his guard against those birds which are called pareudistæ, such as the halcyon, the sandpiper, and the helorius, which is a bird like the rail. For these birds in calm weather feed on the dry land, and often attack the exocœtus; but when he sees them at a distance he flies, leaping and panting, until he dives beneath the water."

6. Moreover, Clearchus says this also more plainly than Philostephanus the Cyrenæan, whom I have previously mentioned. "There are some fish which, though they have no throats, can utter a sound. Such are those which are found near Cleitor, in Arcadia, in the river called Ladon. For they have a voice, and utter a very audible sound." And Nicolaus, of Damascus, in the hundred and fourth book of his History, says—"In the country around Apamea, in Phrygia, at the time of the Mithridatic wars, there were some earthquakes, after which there appeared in that district some lakes which previously had no existence, and rivers, and other springs which had been opened by the earthquake. Many also which had previously existed disappeared. And such a quantity of additional water, which was brackish and of a sea-*green colour, burst up in that district, though it is at a very great distance from the sea, that all the neighbouring country was filled with oysters and fish, and all other productions of the sea." I know also that it has very often rained fishes. At all events, Phænias, in the second book of his Eresian Magistrates, says that in the Chersonesus it once rained fish uninterruptedly for three days; and Phylarchus, in his fourth book, says that people had often seen it raining fish, and often also raining wheat, and that the same thing has happened with respect to frogs. At all events, Heraclides Lembus, in the twenty-first book of his History, says—"In Pæonia and Dardania it has, they say, before now rained frogs; and so great has been the number of these frogs that the houses and the roads have been full of them; and at first, for some days, the inhabitants, endeavouring to kill them, and shutting up their houses, endured the pest; but when they did no good, but found that all their vessels were filled with them, and the frogs were found to be boiled up and roasted with everything they ate, and when besides all this, they could not make use of any water, nor put their feet on the ground for the heaps