352 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1915. 



Etruscan and other ancient works of art. Our plate 2 is from a pho- 

 tograph of an Etruscan vase, which is preserved in the Boston Art 

 Museum, and has the ears beautifully fashioned in the form of sea- 

 horses with the tails conjoined. Similar figures are seen in an Etrus- 

 can frieze belonging to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 

 and the same design is occasionally found in ancient Greek coins. 

 From the time of Pliny onward the sea horse does not reappear in 

 literature until the close of the middle ages, when the great thirteenth 

 century encyclopedists, Vincent de Beauvis (?1190-1264) and Al- 

 bertus Magnus ( ?1206-1280), both mention Hippocampines under 

 the term of " sea dragon." Vincent, or Vincentius, was an extraordi- 

 narily industrious and painstaking compiler. One of his works, the 

 " Speculum Naturali," is a bulky volume, divided into 32 books and 

 3,718 chapters; it seems to have been given to the world about the 

 year 1250, and was first printed at Niiremberg in 1472. For us it 

 represents, as has been well said, " a vast summary of all the natural 

 history known to western Europe toward the middle of the thir- 

 teenth century." Books XVI and XVII treat of fowls and fishes, 

 mainly in alphabetical order, and with frequent references to their 

 medicinal qualities. In book XVI, chapter 138, we find the fol- 

 lowing description of the "sea dragon" ("Zidrach"), quoted from 

 the unknown Gallic author of " Liber de Naturis Eerum " :^ 



Caput liabet ut eqiius, sed forma minori. Corpus autem ex omni parte 

 draconi similium est ; totumque diversimode coloratum. Caudam habet longam 

 secundum quantitatem corporis sui ; gracilem et tortuosam, ut anguis, pinnas 

 quoque habet sicut piscis aliquis. 



Albert of Bollstadt, bishop of Ratisbon, the most erudite scholar 

 and most widely read author of his time, gives, in book XXV of 

 "De Animalibus" (Mantua, 1479), practically the same account as 

 Vincentius, only the vernacular name for sea dragon is either mis- 

 printed or corrupted into "Zydeath," and a slightly different de- 

 scription of the same creature is found on another page under the 

 caption of " Equus maris," as if it were another kind of fish. One 

 of the attributes accredited by Albertus to the sea horse is that it 

 expires on being brought out of water into contact with the air. 

 " Extra aqua nihil potest : statim enim moritur ab aqua extractum," 

 one reads at page 654 of the Lyons edition. 



Important to note is the fact that the characteristic here reported 

 as holding true of Hippocampines was transferred at the hands of 

 later encyclopedists so as to apply to the Remora, or sucking-fish. 

 The fifteenth-century physician who styles himself Johannes von 



1 A widely read medieval work having the same title was written about 1180 by the 

 English schoolman, Alexander Neckham, foster brother of King Richard I. This work 

 is an importiint manual of the scientific knowledge of the twelfth century. Several 

 kinds pf Qshes are mentioned. 



