Here Basil is curiously in contradiction to ancient as well as modern experience.  Martial’s epigram on Domitian’s tame fish, “qui norunt dominum, manumque lambunt illam qua nihil est in orbe majus” (iv. 30) is illustrated by the same author’s “natat ad magistrum delicata muræna” (x. 30), as well as by Ælian (De animal. viii. 4).  “Apud Baulos in parte Baiana piscinam habuit Hortensius orator, in qua murænam adeo dilexit ut exanimatam flesse credatur:  in eadem villa Antonia Drusi murænæ quam diligebat inaures addidit.”  Plin. ix. 71.  So Lucian οὗτοι δε (ίχθύες) καὶ ὀνόματα ἔχουσι καὶ ἔρχονται καλούμενοι.  (De Syr. Dea. 45.)  John Evelyn (Dairy 1644) writes of Fontainebleau:  “The carps come familiarly to hand.”  There was recently a tame carp at Azay le Rideau.