From _The Fisheries of the Adriatic_, a most elaborate Report by Faber on the kinds and market values of the fishes of that sea, I give the class allotted to the fish of my list. It must once more be impressed on the reader that these eight fish (for of course Faber does not deal with the kάpros), were the most renowned in Greece and Rome. Of these, five only—the Mullet, _Acipenser_, _Rhombus_, _Lupus_, and Sole—are in Class I.; the _Asellus_ and _Muræna_ in II.; the _Scarus_, and it could not be lower, in III.[685] The classification disappoints and depresses, especially in the case of the vaunted and lovable _Scarus_. It tempts, however, to an insoluble sum in proportion. If about these and other less esteemed fish the books extant and known to have been lost are almost as countless as the smile of Ocean, how many volumes would an Englishman or an American—given the same fish-mania and the same literary facility as the Greeks—require to do justice to his wealth of first-class edible fish? Verily the Library of Alexandria, with its room for 400,000 volumes, would scarce suffice. FOOTNOTES: [624] Any apparent resemblance in this list, or in this book, to Badham’s book is easily accounted for by the fact that both derive much from the same source, he without any, I with due acknowledgment to the little known volume by Nonnius (Antwerp, 1616), which itself draws largely from Athenæus, Xenocrates, etc. The sequence of sentences, turns of expression, choice of epithets in Badham sometimes so strongly suggest Nonnius, that it is a case of yet another miracle of unconscious absorption—from a rare book written in Latin 238 years previously!—or of—well, Ælianism. I hesitated for a long time from even hinting such unacknowledged extraction by an author to whom two generations have owed much pleasure and more knowledge. Were it not for the inadequacy of his references and for his bursting, Wegg-like, into poetry, which doubles the length and sometimes obscures the sense of the original Greek or Latin, Badham would be delightful reading. [625] Bk. IX. 29. [626] Cf. Blakey, _op. cit._, p. 73. [627] _N. H._, XXXII. 5. [628] In Krause, _op. cit._, 237, Loki, originally god of Fire, changes into a salmon from his predilection for the red colour of the fish! The Icelandic Eddas attribute the invention of the Net to Loki. [629] _Var. epist._, III. 48. [630] _Op. cit._, p. 93. [631] Matron, Ἀττικὸν δεῖπνον, 27 ff.; _ap._ Athen. IV. 13. [632] Cf. Seneca, _Nat. Quæst._, III. 18. Also Pliny, _N. H._, IX. 30. [633] Archestrat., _ap._ Athen., VII. 44. [634] Cf. Macrobius, _Sat._, II. 12, and Athenæus, VII. 44. [635] Horace, _Sat_., II. 2, 46. [636] Macrobius, _Sat._, III. 16, 1.