This story has been imported into the “History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome,” the European form of the Book of Sindibád, where the prince discovers to his father the paramour of his stepmother, the empress, in the person of a young man disguised as one of her maid-servants, and its presence in the work is quite inconsistent with the lady’s violent lust after the young prince. There is a similar tale in the Hebrew version, “Mishlé Sandabar,” but the disguised youth is not detected. Vatsyayana, in his “Káma Sutra” (or Aphorisms of Love), speaks of it as a common practice in India thus to smuggle men into the women’s apartments in female attire. In the Introduction to the “Kathá Sarit Ságara,” Vararuchi relates how King Yogananda saw his queen leaning out of a window and asking questions of a Bráhman guest that was looking up. That trivial circumstance threw the king into a passion, and he gave orders that the Bráhman should be put to death; for jealousy interferes with discernment. Then as that Bráhman was being led off to the place of execution in order that he should be put to death, a fish in the market laughed aloud, though it was dead. The king hearing it immediately prohibited for the present the execution of the Bráhman, and asked Vararuchi the reason why the fish laughed. He desired time to think over the matter and learned from the conversation of a rákshasí with her children that the fish said to himself, “All the king’s wives are dissolute, for in every part of his harem there are men dressed up as women, and nevertheless while those escape, an innocent Bráhman is to be put to death”; and this tickled the fish so that he laughed. Mr. Tawney says that Dr. Liebrecht, in “Orient und Occident,” vol. i. p. 341, compares this story with one in the old French romance of Merlin. There Merlin laughs because the wife of Julius Cæsar had twelve young men disguised as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note on Liebrecht’s article, compares with the story of Merlin one by the Countess d’Aulnois, No. 36 of Basile’s “Pentamerone,” Straparola, iv. 1, and a story in the “Suka Saptatí.” In this some cooked fish laugh so that the whole town hears them; the reason being the same as in the above story and in that of Merlin. In a Kashmírí version, which has several other incidents and bears a close resemblance to No. 4 of M. Legrand’s “Recueil de Contes Populaires Grecs,” to the story of “The Clever Girl” in Professor T. F. Crane’s “Italian Popular Tales,” and to a fable in the Talmud, the king requires his vazír to inform him within six months why the fish laughed in presence of the queen. The vazír sends his son abroad until the king’s anger had somewhat cooled—for himself he expects nothing but death. The vazír’s son learns from the clever daughter of a farmer that the laughing of the fish indicates that there is a man in the palace unknown to the king. He hastens home and tells his father the secret, who at once communicates it to the king.