But Antigonus the Carystian, in his treatise on Language, says that the tunny is sacrificed to Neptune, as we have already mentioned. But Heracleon the Ephesian says that the Attic writers call the tunny the orcynus. And Sostratus, in the second book of his treatise on Animals, says that the pelamys is called the thunnis, or female tunny-fish; but that when it becomes larger, it is called thunnus; and when it gets to a larger size still, it is called the orcynus; and that when it has grown to a size which is quite enormous, then it is called cetus. And Aeschylus likewise mentions the tunny, saying—
I bid you take up hammers now, and beatAnd in another place he says—
The fiery mass of iron, which will utter
No groan, but bear in silence like the tunny.
Turning his eye aside, just like the tunny;because the tunny cannot see well out of his left eye, as Aristotle has said. Menander, in his Fishermen, says—
And the disturbed and muddy sea which breedsAnd in Sophron we find the word θυννοθήρας (a hunter of [p. 476] tunnies); but the same fish which is usually called θύννος, the Attic writers call θυννίς.
The largest tunnies.
