animals

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

swimming creatures

Of swimming creatures that are destitute of feet, some have
winglets or fins, as fishes: and of these some have four fins, two
above on the back, two below on the belly, as the gilthead and the
basse; some have two only,-to wit, such as are exceedingly long and
smooth, as the eel and the conger; some have none at all, as the
muraena, but use the sea just as snakes use dry ground-and by the way,
snakes swim in water in just the same way. Of the shark-kind some have
no fins, such as those that are flat and long-tailed, as the ray and
the sting-ray, but these fishes swim actually by the undulatory motion
of their flat bodies; the fishing frog, however, has fins, and so
likewise have all such fishes as have not their flat surfaces
thinned off to a sharp edge.