Chap. 13.] AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS. 13 



though it attacks other marine animals as well, manifests an 

 rninity to the pastinaca in particular, just as on dry land the 

 weasel does to serpents ; with such avidity does it go in pur- 

 suit of what is poisonous even ! Persons stung \>y the pas- 

 tinaca find a remedy in the ilesh of the galeos, as also in that 

 of the sur-mullet and the vegetable production known as 

 laser.* 



CHAP. 13. (3). AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS. CASTOIIEOI : SIXTY-SIX 



ItKMKDIKS AND OHSKUVAT1ONS. 



The might of Nature, too, is equally conspicuous in the 

 animals which live upon dry land as well;" 1 the beaver, for 

 instance, more generally known as " castor," and the tested of 

 which are called in medicine " castorea." Sextius, a most 

 careful enquirer into the nature and history of medicinal sub- 

 stances, assures us that it is not the truth that this animal, 

 when on the point of being taken, bites olf its tcstes: he in- 

 forms us, also, that these substances are small, tightly knit, 

 and attached to the back-bone, and that it is impossible to 

 remove them without taking the animal's life. AVe learn from 

 him that there is a mode of adulterating them by substituting 

 the kidneys of the beaver, which are of considerable size, 

 whereas the genuine testes are found to be extremely diminu- 

 tive : in addition to which, he says that they must not be taken 

 to be bladders, as they are two in number, a provision not to be 

 found in any animal. AVithin these pouches, w he says, there 

 is a liquid found, which is preserved by being put in salt; the 

 genuine castoreum being easily known from the false, by the 

 fact of its being contained in two pouches, attached by a single 

 ligament. The genuine article, he says, is sometimes fraudu- 

 lently sophisticated by the admixture of gum and blood, or 

 else hammoniacum : w as the pouches, iu' fact, ouglit to be of 



"" Sec B. xix. c. 15, and 15. xxii. c. 40. 



M As water, and are consequently amphibious. 



*- The Castoreuni f tin* ancients, the ' castor'* of our Matfria Medico, 

 is not in reality produced from tin- testcs of the beaver, as was supposed 

 ly the ancients, hut from two o?al pouches situate near the anus of the 

 animal of cither M x. Then- are four of tlu>c pouches in all, two con- 

 taining a sp<vies of fat. and two lurrer ones including in their membranous 

 cells a viscous fetid *u)MaiKV. wiiieli forms tlie castor of medicine. It id 

 considered to ho an antispanniodic. 



44 I-'olliculos." A vt-ry appropriate t<-rm, ns Ajaason rtniurkji. 



tj JSte 13. xii. c, 40, and B. xxxiv. c. 14. 



