34 Mr. Ferguson on the Antiquity of the Kiliee or Boomerang. 



holly, he says, a bludgeon of this wood, if thrown at any beast, and falling short 

 of it, will glide nearer (query, to the beast or to the thrower ?) in its rebound or 

 descent. " Item baculum ex ea factum, in quodvis animal emissum, etiam si 

 citra ceciderit defectu mittentis, ipsum per se recuhitu proprius adlabi, tam 

 praecipuam naturam inesse arbori." — (Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. xxiv. c. 73.) On 

 which the naturalist Bauhin observes : " At nos praecipuam in iis inesse supersti- 

 tionem censemus qui istas nugas credant." — (Hist. Plant. 1. viii. c. 3.) And 

 indeed it is not surprising that properties so extraordinary should excite the 

 ridicule of commentators not practically acquainted with the peculiarities of the 

 weapon. Thus, Cerda, commenting on the words of Isidore, " Quod si ab 

 artifice mittatur rursum redit ad eum qui misit," considering the alleged result 

 as a consequence of some mystical sympathy between the weapon and a particular 

 person, falls into the error of taking artifex to mean the maker of the instru- 

 ment, and exclaims, " Nam cur non etiam redibit si mittatur ab alio quam ab 

 artifice ?"— ( Virg. Not. Var.) 



So far, then, it may be concluded that the Latin writers of the Augustan 

 age were acquainted with weapons possessing all the characteristics of the Boome- 

 rang, but with that degree of uncertainty which would imply that their know- 

 ledge of them had been derived from a source very remote, either in point of 

 distance or of time. This partial ignorance on the subject will account for any 

 apparent discrepancy that might be charged against those evidences in which 

 notices of the Cateia and Aclys, argued to be the same, are drawn from different 

 passages of the same authors, who would thus appear prima facie to put a 

 difference between them. That it was the extreme antiquity of the weapon 

 which caused this uncertainty will appear the more probable from further con- 

 siderations. 



VI.— OF THE CLAVA OF HERCULES AND HAMMER OF THOR. 



Isidore identifies the Cateia with the Clava of Hercules : " Clava est qualis 

 fuit Herculls — haec et Cateia ;" an identity which, most probably, would not 

 have been argued by one so well acquainted with the peculiarities of the Cateia 

 without good grounds. That the Herculean weapon was a missile, appears from 



