That not only the _Scari_ but other fish, _e.g._ the _Melanuri_, feed on seaweed and that they are taken by baits composed of seaweed, many writers besides Athenæus and Pliny duly record. Theocritus (_Id._, XXI. 10) speaks of “baits of seaweed.” Oppian,[356] describing the manner of catching the _salpæ_ by baiting a place with stones covered with seaweed, states that when the fish have gathered round this in numbers, “then prepares he (the fisher) the snare of the weel.” Ælian[357] asserts that among the marine plants, on which he says fish feed, are Βρύα ... καὶ φυκία ἄλλα, the difference between which seems according to Aristotle merely one of size.
If a poll of writers on Fishing and of practical Pisciculturists were taken to-day, a large majority would vote that sea-fish do not eat seaweed, but feed on the _larvæ_, and other minute insects in or on the various _algæ_ or seaweeds. But against this opinion is arrayed the authority of Darwin and Wallace, who state that various species of _Scarus_ do browse, and do graze on seaweed, and some of them exclusively on coral.[358]
The _Skaros_ (according to Aristotle) was the only fish which seemed to ruminate,[359] whose food was seaweed,[360] and teeth, set in deep saw-edged jaws, were not sharp and interlocking, like those of all other fish, but resembled those of a parrot, as its beak resembled that of a parrot.[361]
From the _seeming_ to ruminate of Aristotle we reach in later writers like Oppian, I. 134 ff., and Ovid, _Hal._, 119, the positive assertion that the scarus _did_ ruminate.[362]
Is it not possible, if a mere angler may hazard a suggestion on scientific points, that the belief of modern writers and pisciculturists is not far out, and that while some of the _Scari_ do browse and graze exclusively on coral, and some sometimes on seaweed, they do this to obtain _as food_ only the minute _larvæ_, which their so-called rumination helps them to separate from the seaweed or coral?[363]
A second very practical argument against the reading _musco_ suggests itself. Let us allow that some sea fish do eat not only _algæ_ but moss: even then, why should our _Scarus_ “be deceived” by the small amount possible of attachment to a little hook, of seaweed or moss or their _larvæ_? This is infinitesimal when compared with the greater masses, giving immeasurably ampler supply of _larvæ_, growing in the sea.