10 PLIXT'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXXII. 



he states also that it grunts 6 * liko a hog when taken. These 

 accidental varieties in the natural flavour of fish a thing that 

 is still more surprising may, in some cases, he owing to the 

 nature of the locality; an apposite illustration of whiclrisT-Unf 

 well-known fact that, at Beneventura 81 in Italy, salted provi- 

 sions of all kinds require 68 to be salted over again. 



CHAT. 10. WHEN SEA-FISH WKIlK FIKSTKATKN BY THE PEOPLE OP 



HOME. THE ORDINANCE OF KING NUMA AS TO FISH. 



Cassius Hcmina informs us that sea-fish have Leon in use 

 at Rome from the time of its foundation. I will give his own 

 \vords, however, upon the subject : " Xutna ordained that lish 

 without** scales sliould not he served up at the Festivals of 

 the Gods ; a piece of frugality, the intention of which was, 

 that the banquets, Loth public and private, a.s well as the 

 repasts laid Li-fore the couches 70 of the gods, might he pro- 

 vided at a smaller expense than formerly: it being also his 

 wish to preclude the risk that the caterers for the sacred 

 banquets would spare no expense in buying provisions, and so 

 forestall the market/ 1 



CHAP. 11. CORAL: FORTY-THREE REMEDIES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



In the same degree that people in our part of the world 

 set a value upon the pearls of India a subject on which we 

 have already spoken 71 on the appropriate occasion at sufficient 

 length do the people of India prize coral: it being the 

 prevailing taste in each nation respectively that constitutes 

 the value of things. Coral is produced in the Kcd Sea also, 



66 Ajasson thinks that this notion may possibly have been derived from 

 the name, which not improbably was given to it from the spongy and 

 olcmginoui nature of the flesh. 



;; See 1J. iii. c. 16. 



* Owinjr, perhaps, to the moisture of tho atmosphere. 



w We K-arn from Festus, that he prohibited the use also of the scarus, 

 a fish \cith scales. 



70 "Ad piilvinaria." Literally, "At the cushions;" in reference to 

 .the practice of placing the statues of the pods upon pillov.s at the Lectis- 



ternia, which were sacrifices in the nature of (easts, at which images of 

 the gods were placed reclining on couches, with table* and food before 

 them, as if they were really partaking of the things offered in sacrifice. 

 Livy, IJ. v. c. 13. gives an account of a Lcctisternium celebrated with great 

 pomp, which he asserts to have been the first instance of thu practice. 



71 In B. ii. c. 51. 



