36 plint's natural history. [Book XXXII. 



pearance : this they use by way of ointment for these dis- 

 eases. 



Burnt shells of the murex or purple, applied with honey, 

 have a detergent effect upon spots on the face in females : 

 used as an application for seven consecutive days, a fomenta- 

 tion made of white of eggs being substituted on the eighth, 

 they efface wrinkles, and plump out the skin. To the genus 

 " murex" belong the shell-fish known bj'- the Greeks as '* co- 

 luthia" or '' coryphia," equally turbinated, but considerably 

 smaller : for all the above purposes they are still more effica- 

 cious, and the use of them tends to preserve the sweetness of 

 the breath, Fish-glue^'* effaces wrinkles and plumps out the skin ; 

 being boiled for the purpose in water some four hours, and then 

 pounded and kneaded up till it attains a thin consistency, like 

 that of honey. After being thus prepared, it is put by in a new 

 vessel for keeping ; and, when wanted for use, is mixed, in 

 the proportion of four drachmae, with two drachmae of sulphur, 

 two of alkanet, and eight of litharge ; the whole being 

 sprinkled with water and beaten up together. The prepara- 

 tion is then applied to the face, and is washed off at the end 

 of four hours. For the cure of freckles and other affections 

 of the face, calcined bones of cuttle-fish are also used; an 

 application which is equally good for the removal of fleshy 

 excrescences and the dispersion of running sores. 



(8.) For the cure of itch-scab, a frog is boiled in five semisex- 

 tarii of sea-water, the decoction being reduced to the consistency 

 of honey. There is a sea production called '' halcyoneum," com- 

 posed, as some think, of the nests^^ of the birds known as the 

 '' halcyon "^^ and ''ceyx," or, according to others, of the con- 

 cretion of sea-foam, or of some slime of the sea, or a certain 

 lanuginous inflorescence thrown up by it. Of this halcyoneum 

 there are four different kinds ; the first, of an ashy colour, of a 

 compact substance, and possessed of a pungent odour; the 

 second, soft, of a milder nature, and with a smell almost iden- 



3* " Icthyocolla." See Chapter 24 of the present Book. 



25 Of course this assertion as to the nest of the kingfislier is altogether 

 fabulous, and the sea-productions here described by Pliny were long con- 

 sidered, though destitute of leaves, flowers, and fruit, to belong to the 

 vegetable kingdom. Peyssonnel, however, made the discovery that they 

 belong to the animal kingdom, and that they owe their origin to a species 

 of polyp. 



3" Or kingfisher. See B. x. c, 47. 



