There are also fish called κίχλη, the sea-thrush, and κόσσυφος, the sea-blackbird. The Attic writers call the first κίχλη, with an η; and the reason is as follows:—All the feminine nouns which end in λα have another λ before the λα; as σκύλλα, σκίλλα, κόλλα, βδέλλα, ἅμιλλα, ἅμαλλα: but those which end in λη do not require a λ to precede the λη; as ὁμίχλη, φύτλη, γενέθλη, αἴγλη, τρώγλη, and, in like manner, τρίγλη. Cratinus says—
Suppose a man had eaten a red mullet (τρίγλην),And Diocles, in the first book of his treatise on Wholesomes, says, “Those fish which are called rocky fish have tender flesh; such as the sea-blackbird, the sea-thrush, the perch, the tench, the phyca, the alphesticus.” But Numenius says, in his treatise on Fishing— [p. 479]
Would that alone prove him an epicure?
The sea-born race of grayling or of orphus,And Epicharmus, in his Hebe's Wedding, says—
The black-flesh'd blackbird, or the dainty sea-thrush
Sporting beneath the waves.
Bambradones, sea-thrushes, and sea-hares;And Aristotle, in his treatise on What concerns Animals, says, “And the fishes with black spots, like the sea-blackbird; and the fishes with variegated spots, like the sea-thrush.” But Pancrates the Arcadian, in his Works of the Sea, says that the sea-thrush is called by many names:—
And the bold dragon fish.
Add now to these the sea-thrush red, which theyAnd Nicander, in the fourth book of his Transformed People, says—
Who seek to snare the wary fish with bait
Do call the saurus, and th' æolias,
Add too th' orphiscus with his large fat head.
The scarus or the thrush with many names.