MULLETS AND SEA-PEBCHES. 301 



Horace this fish was valued in proportion to its size, not be- 

 cause the larger were better, but (as happens in the fashion- 

 able world frequently in our own time) because they were 

 procured with greater difficulty. Enormous sums were paid 

 for these fishes. Juvenal tells us, 



" The lavish 

 Six thousand pieces for a mullet gave, 

 A sesterce for each pound." 



amounting altogether to a sum of nearly two hundred and 

 fifty dollars of our money, while, according to Pliny, a con- 

 sul named Asinius Celer gave a sum equal to nearly four hun- 

 dred dollars of our currency for a single fish of this kind ; 

 an infatuation we can only feel paralleled by the " tulip 

 mania " of former days. Neither did the extravagance of 

 these people end even here, for Senaca informs us they were 

 so exceedingly fastidious about the freshness of this fish 

 that, according to the luxurious habits of those days, rich 

 epicures kept aquariums in their dining-rooms, so that the 

 fish could be taken out alive under the table : one reason 

 besides the freshness of the fish, being, that the guests 

 might see them change their colors when they were dying. 

 In these feasts they revelled over the expiring mullet, while 

 the bright red color of health passed through various 

 shades of purple, violet, blue, and white, as life gradually 

 ebbed and convulsions put an end to the revolting specta- 

 cle. They also put these devoted fishes into crystal vessels 

 filled with water, over a slow fire upon their tables, a refine- 

 ment of cruelty which required an *' imperial " Humane Soci- 

 ety to see after. 



The Basse or Sea-Perch is an elegant fish, with chaste 

 and pleasing colors, the upper parts gray with bluish tints 

 shading into silvery white ; tolerably common on our coasts 

 during the summer. The armed Enoplessus, another mem- 

 ber of the Perch family, very abundant in the New Holland 



