They are not capable of holding out against any abrupt
change; consequently they often die in large numbers when men
engaged in transporting them from one place to another dip them into
water particularly cold. They will also die of suffocation if they
be kept in a scanty supply of water. This same remark will hold good
for fishes in general; for they are suffocated if they be long
confined in a short supply of water, with the water kept
unchanged-just as animals that respire are suffocated if they be
shut up with a scanty supply of air. The eel in some cases lives for
seven or eight years. The river-eel feeds on his own species, on
grass, or on roots, or on any chance food found in the mud. Their
usual feeding-time is at night, and during the day-time they retreat
into deep water. And so much for the food of fishes.
3
Of birds, such as have crooked talons are carnivorous without
exception, and cannot swallow corn or bread-food even if it be put
into their bills in tit-bits; as for instance, the eagle of every
variety, the kite, the two species of hawks, to wit, the dove-hawk and
the sparrow-hawk-and, by the way, these two hawks differ greatly in
size from one another-and the buzzard.
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