HIlTOCAMrUS RAMULOSUS. 11 



motion distinct from the trunk ; but was used sometimes as a stay or hook 

 wherewith to raise the body, after the manner of a parrot in climbing. 



It lived in this state for about twelve hours ; never voluntarily quitting 

 its hold of the stick. 



It was before mentioned that the Hippocampi are not known to be em- 

 ployed as food : and -^lian relates, on the report of certain fishermen, that 

 one part of them is poisonous ; which, if true, might probably be only owing, 

 as he says, to some noxious acrid substance eaten by the fish. Willughby 

 refers to the same ^lian for their use as a remedy in hydrophobia ; and 

 Risso at this very day says that, first dried in the sun, then gently roasted, 

 and steeped in wine, they are esteemed, at least by sailors, serviceable for 

 assuaging colics ; whilst Dioscorides again had mentioned long before their 

 use made into an ointment for a specific against baldness ! The whole 

 account in ^lian is so amusing, that I cannot forbear adding a translation 

 of the chapter :— r 



" There are experienced fishermen who say, that if the paunch of the 

 Hippocavipus be boiled down in wine and given for a drink, this potion is 

 a poison of a strange unusual kind, compared with every other poison. For 

 he who drinks it is first seized with violent hiccup ; then with a dry spas- 

 modic cough, without expectoration ; the epigastric region swells and is 

 distended ; an access of warm humours floats up into and loads the head, 

 and passes down the nostrils in the form of a thin discharge, diflfusing a 

 kind of fishy smell ; the eyes become bloodshot and fiery ; the eyelids 

 swell ; an inclination to vomit is excited, but nothing is brought up. If 

 nature get the better, and the patient escape death, he gradually loses his 

 memory and sinks into a state of mental aberration ; but, if the poison have 

 crept lower than the stomach, it is a lost case, — he must die. Those wdio 

 survive, but become insane, are possessed with a strong passion for water, 

 and have a thirsty longing to behold it and to hear it flow, and this com- 

 poses them and lulls them to sleep. And they delight to spend their time 

 by everflowing streams, or near the sea-shore, or by lakes and fountains ; and, 

 whilst devoid of all desire to drink, they love to swim, and bathe their feet 

 or wash their hands. Some say, however, that it is not the paunch itself of 

 the Hippocampus which is the cause of this; but that the animal feeds on 

 some extremely bitter (noxious, virulent, or acrid) seaweed {^vk'iov, fucus) 

 which imparts to it this quality. Nay, the Hippocampus has been found, 

 by the sagacity of an old fisherman well skilled in sea-matters, even to be 

 an efficacious remedy. The old man was a Cretan ; and his sons, young 

 men, were, like their father, fishermen. Well then, it had happened that 

 this old man having caught some Hippocampuses amongst other fishes, the 

 young men, one after another rendering assistance to the first attacked, were 

 bitten by a mad dog. They were then lying near the shore of Methymna 



