278 SUPPLEMENT ON 



civilization. One cannot, indeed, read these revolting his- 

 tories of old time without a blush at certain modern practices 

 far too analogous with them ; the sense of taste may in the 

 cases alluded to be alone consulted, but the difference is no- 

 thing to the suffering animal whether its torments gratify one 

 or more of the evil passions of its tormentors. The skinning 

 of eels and the boiling of live Crustacea would be as disgust- 

 ing as the gradual boiling of a mullet, did not in this, as in 

 many other cases, the practice of evil destroy the feeling of 

 its iniquity. 



So extravagant was the folly of the Romans with regard to 

 this fish that they often gave for them immense prices. 

 Martial mentions one of four pounds weight, which had cost 

 1300 sesterces ; and it is said that the emperor Tiberius sold 

 one, weighing nearly five pounds, for 4000 sesterces. Asinius 

 Celer, one of the consuls, is reported by Pliny to have paid 

 8000; and, according to Suetonius, 30,000 sesterces had been 

 given for three mullets. 



The surmulet, or striped mullet, Mullus surmuletus, Lin., 

 is found more abundantly than the red, and is not confined to 

 the coasts of Europe, having been found in vast numbers on 

 the southernmost parts of South America, and latterly a little 

 south of New York : it is sometimes caught weighing seven 

 pounds. It feeds like the red mullet, but is remarkable for 

 giving out at times a strong and disagreeable odour. This 

 species was consecrated by the Romans to Diana, as goddess 

 of the chase, because, as they thought, it pursued and at- 

 tacked dangerous fish : they live gregariously, and quit the 

 depths of the sea, to deposit their eggs about the mouths of 

 rivers, three times in the year. They are good eating, but are 

 not so highly prized as the other species. 



Of the second family of this order whose cheeks are armed, 

 the first genus is trigla, the gurnard, of which T. pint of Bloch, 

 the red gurnard, is frequently seen in our markets, and is 







