Some fishes breed at all seasons, as the muraena. This animal
lays a great number of eggs at a time; and the young when hatched
are very small but grow with great rapidity, like the young of the
hippurus, for these fishes from being diminutive at the outset grow
with exceptional rapidity to an exceptional size. (Be it observed that
the muraena breeds at all seasons, but the hippurus only in the
spring. The smyrus differs from the smyraena; for the muraena is
mottled and weakly, whereas the smyrus is strong and of one uniform
colour, and the colour resembles that of the pine-tree, and the animal
has teeth inside and out. They say that in this case, as in other
similar ones, the one is the male, and the other the female, of a
single species. They come out on to the land, and are frequently
caught.) Fishes, then, as a general rule, attain their full growth
with great rapidity, but this is especially the case, among small
fishes, with the coracine or crow-fish: it spawns, by the way, near
the shore, in weedy and tangled spots. The orphus also, or
sea-perch, is small at first, and rapidly attains a great size. The
pelamys and the tunny breed in the Euxine, and nowhere else. The
cestreus or mullet, the chrysophrys or gilt-head, and the labrax or
basse, breed best where rivers run into the sea. The orcys or
large-sized tunny, the scorpis, and many other species spawn in the
open sea.