Chap. 4.] MARVELS or THE BED SEA, 5 



state of pregnancy so much as looks upon one of these fishes, 

 she is immediately seized with nausea and vomiting — a proof 

 that the injury has reached the stomach — and abortion is the 

 ultimate result. The proper preservative against these bane- 

 ful effects is the male fish, which is kept dried for the purpose 

 in salt, and worn in a bracelet upon the arm. And yet this 

 same fish, while in the sea, is not injurious, by its contact 

 even. The only animal that eats it without fatal consequences, 

 is the mullet \^^ the sole perceptible result being that its flesh 

 is rendered more tender thereby, but deteriorated in flavour, 

 and consequently not so highly esteemed. 



Persons when poisoned^^ by the sea-hare smell strongly of 

 the fish — the first sign, indeed, by which the fact of their 

 having been so poisoned is detected. Death also ensues at the 

 end of as many days as the fish has lived : hence it is that, 

 as Licinius Macer informs us, this is one of those poisons 

 which have no definite time for their operation. In India, ^^ we 

 are assured, the sea-hare is never taken alive ; and, we are told 

 that, in those parts of the world, man, in his turn, acts as a 

 poison upon the fish, which dies instantly in the sea, if it is 

 only touched with the human finger. There, like the rest 

 of the animals, it attains a much larger size than it does 

 with us. 



CHAP. 4. MAEVELS OF THE RED SEA. 



Juba, in those books descriptive of Arabia, which he has 

 dedicated to Caius Csesar, the son of Augustus, informs us that 

 there are mussels^^ on those coasts, the shells of which are 

 capable of holding three semisextarii ; and that, on one occa- 

 sion, a whale, ^* six hundred feet in length and three hundred 

 and sixty feet broad,^^ made its way up a river of Arabia, 



the Sea-hare of the ancients is identified) in the number of the animal 

 poisons, and remarks that (as we find stated by Ccelius Rhodiginus, B. 

 xxvi. c. 30) the Emperor Titus was dispatched by the agency of this 

 poison, administered to him by the direction of his brother Domitian. 

 Sist. Inv. vol. I. p. 51. Bohn's Ed. 



20 Athenseus says, B. viii., that the Scarus pursues it and devours it. 



21 "Quibus impactus est." A curious expression; if indeed it is the 

 correct reading. 



22 See B. ix. c. 72. 23 Mituli. See B. ix. c. 74. 



24 "Cetos." 



25 Ajasson remarks, in confutation of this story, that there are few 

 rivers in Arabia of such a breadth. 



