A bird frequents these parts with a blue chest, called _Passer solitarius;_ he abounds in the rocky crevices. The notes of one, which was shown to us in a cage, sounded sweetly; but, as he was carnivorous, the weather was too hot for us to think of taking him away. We saw two snakes put into the same box: the one, a viper, presently killed the other, and much the larger of the two. Serpents, then, like men, do _not_, as the _Satirist_ asserts, spare their kind. We are disappointed at not finding any coins, nor any other good _souvenirs_, to bring away with us. The height of Taormina is sufficient to keep it from fever, which is very prevalent at Giardini below. Its bay was once a great place for catching _mullet_ for the Roman market. It seems to have been the _Torbay_ of Sicily. Some fish love their ease, and rejoice not in turbulent waters. The _muræna_, or lamprey, on the contrary, was sought in the very whirlpools of _Charybdis_. The modern Roman, on his own side of Italy, has few turbot, but very good ones are still taken off Ancona, in the Adriatic, where the _spatium admirabile Rhombi_, as the reader will, or ought to recollect, was taken and sent to Domitian at Albano by _Procaccio_ or _Estafetta_. Juvenal complains that the Tyrrhene sea was exhausted by the demand for fish, though there was no _Lent_ in those times. If the Catholic clergy insist that there _was_, we beg to object, that the keepers thereof were probably not in a condition to compete with the _Apiciuses_ of the day, who bought fish for their _bodies'_, and not for their SOULS' SAKE. CATANIA. Tum Catane nimium ardenti vicina Typhæo.