Zoological Society. 73 



A specimen was exhibited of a claw obtained from the tip of the 

 tail of a young Lion from Barbary, recently presented to the Society's 

 Menagerie by Sir Thomas Reade, His Majesty's Consul at Tripoli. 

 It was detected on the living animal by Mr. Bennett, and pointed 

 out to the keeper, in whose hands it came off while he was exa- 

 mining it. 



Mr. Woods, to whom the specimen had been submitted for descrip- 

 tion, communicated to the Committee an enlarged representation of 

 it, with other illustrations of the subject, and gave a detailed account 

 of previous observations bearing upon this curious formation. 



He commenced by referring to the writings of Homer, who re- 

 marked (erroneously, however,) that the Lion when angry lashes his 

 sides with his tail ; a remark which was repeated by many of the 

 ancient poets both Greek and Roman, and was carried by Lucan to 

 a yet greater extent, when he stated that the Lion lashes himself into 

 rage : Pliny also indicates his belief that by this means the animal 

 increases the anger already kindled in him. None of these writers, 

 however, advert to any peculiarity in the tail of the Lion to which so 

 extraordinary a function might, however incorrectly, be attributed. 

 The discovery of the existence of such a peculiarity was reserved for 

 Didymus Alexandrinus, one of the early commentators on the Iliad, 

 who found a black prickle, like a horn, among the hair of the tail, and 

 immediately conjectured, it must be allowed with some degree Of 

 plausibility) that he had ascertained the true cause of the stimulus to 

 the animal when he flourishes his tail in defiance of his enemies, for 

 he remarks that when punctured by this prickle the Lion becomes 

 more irritable from the pain which it occasions. 



For centuries after this announcement the Lion's tail and its mys- 

 terious prickle were consigned to oblivion, the discovery of the learned 

 commentator being either unnoticed, or disregarded, or doubted, until 

 about twenty years since, when M.Blumenbach, in his 'Miscellaneous 

 Notices in Natural History,' revived the subject, having verified the 

 accuracy as to the fact, though not admitting the induction, of Didy- 

 mus Alexandrinus. He describes a small dark-coloured prickle in 

 the very tip of the Lion's tail, as hard as a piece of horn, surrounded 

 at its base by an annular fold of the skin, and adhering firmly to a 

 singular follicle of a glandular appearance. All these parts were 

 however, he remarks, so minute, and the little horny apex so buried 

 in the tuft of hair, that the use attributed to it by the ancient scholi- 

 ast cannot be regarded as any thing else than imaginary. Blumen- 

 bach's description was accompanied by a figure, which was copied in 

 the ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal*' in the 8th volume of which a 

 translation of his paper was given. 



The subject appears to have again slumbered until 1829, when M. 

 Deshayes announced, in the 'Annates des Sciences Naturelles' (vol. 

 vii. p. 79), that he had found the prickle on both a Lion and Lioness 

 which died in the national Menagerie of France. It was described by 

 him as a little nail or horny production, about two lines in length, 

 presenting the form of a small cone, a little recurved upon itself, and 

 Third Scries. Vol. 2. No. 7. Jan. 1833. L 



