508 DOLPHIN. 



tion to the human race, and its appearance regard- 

 ed as a prosperous omen. " The Dolphin," says 

 Pliny, " is friendly to man, and pleased with mu- 

 sick. He does not fly from the sight of mankind, 

 but of his own accord meets their ships, gamboling 

 before them, and accompanying their course, as 

 if through a spirit of emulation ; and always out- 

 stripping them, even when sailing with the most 

 favourable wind." 



Pliny also relates several tales relative to the 

 affection of the Dolphin to mankind ; one of 

 which is the following, which will perhaps appear 

 more interesting in the simple translation of Phi- 

 lemon Holland, than if delivered in the more 

 elegant style of modern language. 



" Divo Augusto principe, Sec. &c." " In the 

 daies of Augustus Cassar the Emperor, there was 

 a Dolphin entered the gulfe or pool Lucrinus, 

 which loved wonderous well a certain boy a poor 

 man's sonne : who using to go every day to 

 schoole from Baianum to Puteoli, was woont also 

 about noone-tide to stay at the water side and to 

 call unto the Dolphin Simo 9 Sirno, and many times 

 would give him fragments of bread, which of 

 purpose hee ever brought with him, and by this 

 meane allured the Dolphin to come ordinarily 

 unto him at his call. (I would make scruple and 

 bash to insert this tale in my storie and to tell it 

 out, but that Mecaenas Fabianus, Flavius Alrius, 

 and many others have set it downe for a truth in 

 their Chronicles.) Well, in processe of time, at 

 what houre soever of the day, this boy lured for 



