In the reign of Augustus CÆsar there was a dolphin in the Lucrine lake, which formed a most romantic attachment to a poor man’s son. The boy had to go every day from BaiÆ to Puteoli to school, and such were the friendly terms on which he had got with the dolphin, that he had only to wait by the banks of the lake and cry, Simo, Simo, the name he had given to the animal, when, lo! Simo came scudding to the shore, let fall the sharp prickles of his skin, and gently offered his back for the boy to mount upon. The boy, nothing afraid, used to mount instantly, when the dolphin, without either rein or spur, would speed across the sea to Puteoli, and after landing the young scholar, wait about the vicinity till he was returning home, when it would again perform the same sort of civil service. The boy was not ungrateful for such extraordinary favour, and used every day to bring a good store of victuals for Simo, which the animal would take from his hand in the most tame and kindly manner imaginable. For several years this friendly intercourse was kept up; it was, in fact, only terminated by the death of the boy; when, as the story goes, the dolphin was so affected at seeing him return no more, that it threw itself on the shore, and died, as was thought, of very grief and sorrow!