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Now the examples I have given indicate intelligence and an ingenious, subtle use of it for opportune profit; but there are others that display, in combination with understanding, a social sense and mutual affection, as is the case with the barbierThe anthias of the above passage is probably the Mediterranean barbier, Serranus anthias C.V., although elsewhere it is sometimes obviously a much larger fish of uncertain identity. On the identification Cf. Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. vi. 17 (570 b 19); Glossary of Greek Fishes, s.v.; Mair, introd. to his ed. of Oppian, pp. liii-lxi; Marx, RE, i. 2375-2377; ii. 2415; Schmid, Philologus, Suppb. xi, 1907-1910, p. 273; Brands, Grieksche Diernamen, pp. 147 f.; Cotte, Possions et animaux aquatiques au temps de Pline, pp. 69-73; Saint-Denis, Le Vocabulaire des animaux marins en latin classique, pp. 5-7. Cf. also 981 e infra. and the parrot-fish. For if one parrot-fish swallows the hook, the others present swarm upon the line and nibble it away; and the same fish, when any of their kind have fallen into the net, give them their tails from outside; when they eagerly fix their teeth in these, the others pull on them and bring them through in tow.On this story cf. also Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 4; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxii. 11; Ovid, Hal. 9 ff.; Oppian, Hal. iv. 40 ff. Note also Aelian, De Natura Animal. v. 22, on mice. And barbiers are even more strenuous in rescuing their fellows: getting under the line with their backs, they erect their sharp spines and try to saw the line through and cut if off with the rough edge. Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 182; xxxii. 13; Ovid, Hal. 45 ff.; Oppian, Hal. iii. 321 ff.
