372 PLINY'S NATUEAL HISTORY. [Book IX. 



and more especially by the notes of the water-organ. 66 He 

 does not dread man, as though a stranger to him, but comes to 

 meet ships, leaps and bounds to and fro, vies with them in 

 swiftness, and passes them even when in full sail. 



In the reign 67 of the late Emperor Augustus, a dolphin 

 which had been carried to the Lucrine Lake 68 conceived a 

 most wonderful affection for the child of a certain poor man, 

 who was in the habit of going that way from Baise to Pu- 

 teoli 69 to school, and who used to stop there in the middle of 

 the day, call him by his name of Sirno, and would often entice 

 him to the banks of the lake with pieces of bread which he 

 carried for the purpose. I should really have felt ashamed to 

 mention this, had not the incident been stated in writing in 

 the works of Maecenas, Fabianus, Flavius Alfius, and many 

 others. At whatever hour of the day he might happen to be 

 called by the boy, and although hidden and out of sight at the 

 bottom of the water, he would instantly fly to the surface, 

 and after feeding from his hand, would present his back for 

 him to mount, taking care to conceal the spiny projection of 

 his fins 70 in their sheath, as it were ; and so, sportively taking 

 him up on his back, he would carry him over a wide expanse 



music combined, similar to the performance of Arion, mentioned at the end 

 of the Chapter. 



66 The organ was so called by the ancients, from the resemblance borne 

 by its pipes to " hydraula," or water-pipes, and from the fact of the 

 bellows being acted on by the pressure of water. According to an author 

 quoted by Athenaeus, B. iv. c. 75, the first organist was Ctesibius of Alex- 

 andria, who lived about B.C. 200. It is not improbable that Pliny refers 

 to this invention in B. vii. c. 38. The pipes of the organ of Ctesibius were 

 partly of bronze and partly of reed, and Tertullian describes it as a very 

 complicated instrument. 



67 2Elian, Hist. Anim. B. vi. c. 15, tells this story as well, and Aulus 

 Gellius, B. vii. c. 8, relates it from the fifth Book of the JEgyptiaca of Apion, 

 who stated that he himself had witnessed the fact. 



68 The Lucrine Lake originally communicated with the sea, but was af- 

 terwards separated from the Bay of Cumae by a dyke eight stadia in length. 

 In the time of Augustus, however, Agrippa opened a communication between 

 the Lake and the Bay, for the purpose of forming the Julian harbour. If 

 the circumstance here mentioned by Pliny happened before this period, 

 " invectus " must mean " carried by human agency ;" but if after, it is pos- 

 sible that the fish may have been carried into the lake by the tide. For 

 an account of the lake, see B. iii. c. 9. 



69 See B. iii. c. 9. 



70 ** Pinnarum aculeas." See the remarks of Cuvier on this passage, 

 and his conclusion as to the fish meant, in his Note in p, 369. 



