THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. Q7 
Italian banqueting, was represented by an enormous sum of mon- 
ey. The stock kept up by Lucullus was never valued at a sum 
less than £35,000! These classic lovers of good things had pet 
breeds of fish, as gentlemen in the present day have pet breeds 
of sheep or horned cattle. Lucullus, for instance—to have such 
a valuable stock—must have been in possession of unique vari- 
eties derived from curious crosses. Red mullet and fat carp, 
which sold for large prices, were not at all unusual. We can 
ascertain that £60 were given fora single mullet, and more than 
three times this sum fora single dish of that fish. Enormous 
sums of money were lavished in the buying, rearing, and taming 
of the mullet; so much, indeed, that some of those who devoted 
their time and money to this purpose, were satirized as “ mullet 
millionaires.” These old Romans are the archetypes of our cod- 
fish aristocracy. Social life repeats itself. 
ICHTHYOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY. 
How fancy has sported with the fishes! Strange stories about 
sea-monsters fill the pages of ancient lore and modern fish-gossip. 
These stories culminate in the mysterious kraken, the apochry- 
phal sea-serpent, and the real octopus. These narratives of sea- 
monsters are not surprising when we think of such oddities of 
the sea as the cuttle-fish and other armed brigands of the deep. 
The inhabitants of the sea are, perhaps, more curious, if not 
more numerous, than those upon the land. Our deep-sea dredg- 
ing is bringing to the surface and light such outre forms of ma- 
rine life as to make the prehistoric monsters respectable in fash- 
ion and form. 
The heavens in their remote and strange phases declare the 
glory of the marine life. Are not the four principal constella- 
tions called after the marines? Does not the zodiac connect 
astronomy with sea-monsters? In one of the tractates of the 
London Exhibition, Mr. Phil Robinson thus revels in the ima- 
gery of sea-things as translated to the sky: 
What antiquities, then, they are, these sea-myths of our stellar hem- 
ispheres! Tumbling in open space, the happy Dolphin, belted with 
Stars, the gift of grateful Olympus; the luminous sea-lizard; Cetus, 
the shaggy whale, spangled from twinkling snout to twinkling tail, 
