Book 7
137
But the thrissa is mentioned by Aristotle in his book on Animals and Fishes, in these words—The following are stationary fish: the thrissa, the encrasicholus, the membras anchovy, the coracinus, the erythrinus, and the trichis. And Eupolis mentions the trichis in his Flatterers;— He was a stingy man, who once in his life Before the war did buy some trichides; But in the Samian war, a ha'p'orth of meat. And Aristophanes, in his Knights, says— If trichides were to be a penny a hundred. But Dorion, in his treatise on Fishes, speaks also of the river Thrissa; and calls the trichis trichias. Nicochares, in his Lemnian Women, says— The trichias, and the premas tunny too, Placed in enormous quantities for supper. (But there was a kind of tunny which they used to call premnas. Plato, in his Europa, has these lines— He once, when fishing, saw one of such size A man could scarcely carry it, in a shoal Of premnades, and then he let it go, Because it was a boax.) And Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, calls it a trichias also, but in the book which is entitled ζωϊκὸν, he calls it trichis. And it is said that this fish is delighted with dancing and singing, and that when it hears music it leaps up out of the sea.
