HISTORICAL 13 



writers, both before and after Pliny. These are usually concerned with 

 their use as a food or medicine or in relation to phases of the moon 

 (see Fox 1924a, b; Zirpolo 1929; D'Arcy Thompson 1947) or to the 

 storm. Among these writers may be mentioned: Ennius (239-169 B.C.) 

 who spoke in his Hedyphagetica (ed. Vahlen, p. 220) of the "dulces 

 echini"; Lucilius (ca. 148-103 B.C.) who said in his Satirae "luna aUt 

 ostrea et implet echinos"; Horace (65-8 B.C.) who said in his Epodes 

 (v. 28) "horret capillis ut marinus asperis echinus''', Dioscorides (first 

 century A.D., contemporary of Pliny), a botanist who said o^ Echinus 

 marinus that "it is good for ye stomach, good for ye belly and ureticall; 

 the raw shell of which, being roasted does well to be mixed amongst 

 detergentia medicamenta made for ye psorae (itch). Being burnt it 

 cleanseth foule ulcers and doth repress excrecencies of ye flesh." Galen 

 (130-200 A.D.) spoke of sea urchins both as food and medicine. Atha- 

 naeus wrote (after 228 A.D.) in his Deipnosophistae or Banquet of the 

 Learned (iii. 91) that echini are "tender, juicy, easily digested, and 

 when eaten with honey, vinegar, parsley and mint they are whole- 

 some, sweet and good-tasting. In some places they are rather bitter, 

 and those in Sicily act as a laxative." St. Augustine (354-431 A.D.) 

 wrote in his De Civitate Dei (v. 6) "Et lunaribus incrementis atque 

 decrementis augeri et minui quaedam genera rerum, sicut echinos 

 et conchas." 



b. Middle Ages 



Michael Glycas, in the twelfth century, in his annals of events from the 

 beginning of the world speaks of the forecast of a storm by the sea 

 urchins loading themselves with stones as described by Pliny. The poet 

 Manuel Phile (ca. 12 75- 1340) also refers to this belief in one of his 

 natural history poems, De Echino Aquatili, and Joachim Camerarius 

 ( 1 534-1 598) speaks of it in his Symbolorum et Emblematum (Centuria 

 quarta, p. 51) and shows a fine woodcut of a sea urchin with the 

 pebbles on its back (Fig. 3). 



In his encyclopaedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum, Bartholomaeus (An- 

 glicus) (ca. 1240) wrote concerning hedgehogs and sea urchins: "The 

 Urchin is a beast heled with pricks, hard and sharp, and his skin is 

 closed about with pikes and pricks, and he closeth himself therewith. 

 And he is a beast of purveyance" (i.e. the hedgehog). "And there is a 

 manner kind of Urchins with a white shell and white pikes, and layeth 

 many eggs... In Urchins is wit and knowing of coming of winds north 

 or south... Also the Urchin breedeth five eggs better than other, and 

 the eggs of some be much and great, and some be less ; for some be 



