The swan was also fattened by the Romans, who first deprived it of sight; and cranes were by no means despised by people of taste. In later days the swan seems to have been in great estimation in our own country. We find in the Northumberland household book that in one year twenty of these birds were consumed at the earl's table. While the feathered creation was doomed to form part of ancient delights, the waters yielded their share of enjoyments, and several fishes were immortalized. The _muraena Helena_ was educated in their ponds, and rendered so tame that he came to be killed at the tinkling of his master's bell or the sound of his voice. Natat ad magistrum delicta muraena, says Martial. Hirtius ceded six thousand of these fish to Caesar as a great favour, and Vitellius delighted in their roe. The fame of the lamprey, _mustela_ of Ausonius and Pliny, is generally known; and the sturgeon, the _acipenser sturio_, was brought to table with triumphant pomp: but the turbot, one of which was brought to Domitian from Ancona, was considered such a present from the gods, that this emperor assembled the senate to admire it. Soles were also so delectable that punning on the word _solea_, they were called the _soles_ of the gods: the dorad, _sparus auratus_, was consecrated to Venus; the _labrus scarus_ was called the brain of Jupiter, and Apuleius and Epicharmus maintain that its very entrails would be relished in Olympus. To these dainties may be added the _Alphestae_, a fish always caught in pairs from their eagerness to be eaten. The _Amia_ so very delicious that the Athenians defied the worst cook to spoil them. The _Gnaphius_ that imparted to the water that had had the honour to boil them, the facility of taking out all stains. The _Pompilus_ which sprang with Venus from the blood of the sky. The fish called _fox_ by the Rhodians, and _dog_ by the Boeotians, was considered such a dainty that Archestratus recommended epicures to steal them if they could not procure them by honest means; adding, that all calamities should be considered immaterial after a man had once feasted on such a luscious morsel, too divine to be gazed upon by vulgar eyes, and which ought to be procured by the wealthy, if they did not wish to incur the wrath of the gods, for not appreciating at its true value the flower of their nectar. Eels were also highly esteemed by the ancients. The preference being given to the _Copaic_, which the Boeotians offered to the gods crowned with flowers, giving them the same rank among fish that Helen held amongst women. The _garum_, or celebrated fish-sauce of the Romans, was principally made out of the _sciaena umbra_, and the mackerel; the entrails and blood being macerated in brine until they became putrid. Expirantis adhuc scombri, de sanguine primo Accipe fastosum munera cara garum:--