829 



CERATOPHRTS. 



CERBERUS. 



830 



pulp, and are sometimes seen in the fruiterers' shops in London ; they 

 are a common article of food in the countries where the tree grows 

 wild. Pliny calls it Siliqua prcedulcis. " At the present day it is 

 sent from Palestine to Alexandria in ship-loads, and from thence 



Carob-Troe (Ccralonia Siliytia}. 



across the Mediterranean, and as far as Constantinople, where it is 

 sold in all the shops. The pulp resembles manna in taste and con- 

 sistence, and is sometimes used as sugar to preserve other substances. 

 But the circumstance that has rendered it famous is the controversy 

 whether it was not the real food of St. John in the wilderness. Some 

 of the fathers assert that the axpiSts, or locusts, of St. John were 

 some vegetable substance; and the juAi &yptov, wild honey, the 

 saccharine matter of this pod. It is certain that the plant grows in 

 great abundance in the wilderness of Palestine, where its produce is 

 at this day used for food. It is called by the Arabs kharoob." 

 ( \Valrfh.) The Spaniards call it Algnroba, and give its pods to horses. 

 The seeds, which are nearly of the weight of a carat, have been thought 

 to have been the origin of that ancient money-weight. 



CERATOPHRYS. [AMPHIBIA.] 



CERATOPHYLLA'CE/E, J/ornvortt, the Ceratophyllum Tribe, a 

 small and obscure group of plants comprehending the single genus 

 Ceratophyllum, probably a mere section of Urticacea, with the structure 

 and habit of that natural order modified by the submersed situation 

 in which the species live. It has also been supposed to have relations 

 with Conifera, Ilaloragacea, and Naiadaceoe. They are aquatic plants, 

 with cellular leaves split into capillary divisions, with monoecious 

 flowers, a many-parted inferior calyx, several stamens, a 1-celled 

 ovary with a pendulous ovule, and a seed whose embryo has four 

 cotyledons surrounding a highly developed many-leaved plumula. 

 Ceralophyllum tubmertum and C. demertum inhabit ditches in this 

 country. Four other species are described. Schleideu says there 

 is bvit one species. 



CERATOPHYTA. [POLYZOA.] 



CE'RBERA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order 

 Apocynace<t, contains among other poisonous species that from which 

 the Tanghin poison of Madagascar is procured. The genus Cerbera is 

 known by the calyx being leafy, the corolla funnel-shaped, with a 

 clavate tube, and five scales on its orifice, the stamens sessile just 

 below the orifice of the tube, and a 1- or 2-eeded drupe, with a 

 fibrous woody stone. 



O. Tanghin, the Tanghin, is described as a tree with lanceolate 

 alternate leaves, of a leathery texture, pale-pink flowers arranged in 

 corymbose panicles, with a crimson star-like blotch at the orifice of 

 the tube, and an oval drupe as large as a peach, of a green colour 

 stained with purple, and not unlike some sorte of mango. The 

 following interesting account of the plant is given by Mr. Telfair : 

 The kernel of the fruit must be a very powerful poison : it is not 

 much larger than an almond, and yet is sufficient to destroy above 

 twenty persons. Radama, the late king of Madagascar, abolished the 

 use of it as an ordeal. Whether the custom has been revived by the new 

 government I know not. It was with great difficulty that the chief- 

 tains could be persuaded to admit of the abolition of an usage 

 which had existed from time immemorial, and whose unerring efficacy 

 in the detection and punishment of crime had never been questioned, 

 until Mr. Hasty, our government agent, had acquired such an influence 

 with Radama and his court as to admit of the exposure of its fallacy. 



But this was the work of years ; and although Radama was at length 

 himself convinced that nothing could be more unjust than the con- 

 tinuance of the practice, he dared not so far shock the prejudices of 

 his people as to order that it should cease. Even the chief performers 

 in the ceremony, the Skids, as they are called at Tanararissoo, who 

 unite in their own persons the offices of priests and physicians, and 

 who administer the poisonous kernel to the victims, never doubt its 

 power of revealing guilt or clearing innocence. The last occasion on 

 which it was practised in Radama's reign, and of which he availed 

 himself to effect its discontinuance, personally regarded his court and 

 attendants. The king was affected with a complaint of the liver, for 

 which the skid prescribed some inefficacious remedies, and as the 

 disease became worse Mi-. Hasty gave him some calomel in doses 

 which he had found by experience to relieve himself under similar 

 symptoms. The disease disappeared, but ptyalism was produced, 

 and alarmed the king's family, who believed that he was poisoned, and 

 insisted that all his immediate attendants should be put to the ordeal 

 of the tanghin ; and the royal skid was most earnest in pressing to 

 have it performed, although he himself from his rank and place was 

 among the first to whom it would be administered. In vain the king 

 protested that he felt himself cured, and that the indisposition and 

 soreness of the mouth was caused by the medicines that had relieved 

 him, and which would pass off in a few days. The skid insisted, the 

 ministers and principal chieftains joined with the family in requiring 

 the ordeal, to which the king in spite of his convictions was compelled 

 to consent ; but at the same time he made it a condition that this 

 should be the last exhibition of the kind, and he bewailed the neces- 

 sity which deprived him of so many attached dependants whose 

 fate he had predicted, while he protested his conviction of their 

 innocence. 



The king's servants, including the skid, were more than twenty in 

 number; they were shut up at night separately, and not allowed to 

 taste food ; the next morning they were brought out in procession 

 and paraded before the assembled people ; the presiding skid had the 

 tanghin fruit in readiness ; after some prayers and superstitious 

 evolutions he took out the kernel, which he placed on a smooth 

 stone, and with another stone broke down part of it into a soft white 

 mass like powdered almonds. The victims were then brought sepa- 

 rately forward, each was questioned as to his guilt, and if he denied, 

 his arms were tied behind, and he was placed on his knees before the 

 skid, who put a portion of the pounded kernel on his tongue and 

 compelled him to swallow it. Thus the kernel was shared among all 

 the king's personal servants. On some of the individuals the poison 

 began to operate in half an hour or less. The skid takes particular 

 notice how they fall, whether on the face, to the right or left hand, or 

 on the back, each position indicating a different shade of guilt. Con- 

 Tulsions generally come on accompanied with efforts to vomit. These 

 whose stomachs reject the dose at an early period usually recover. On 

 this occasion there were only two individuals with whom this was the 

 case. The others were thrown in a state of insensibility into a hole, and 

 every person present at the ceremony was obliged to throw a stone 

 over them, so that their burial was quickly completed. The king's 

 skid was one of the first that fell. Those that recover are supposed 

 to bear a charmed life ever after, and are respected as the peculiar 

 favourites of the gods. (' Botanical Magazine,' fol. 2968.) 



The plant which yields the Tanghin has been called by Du Petit 

 Thomas Tanghinia venenifera. C. Manghai is a native of Singapore 

 and some of the adjacent islands. The seeds are emetic and poisonous, 

 whilst the milky sap is purgative. The leaves and bark are used as 

 a substitute for senna. 



CE'RBERUS, a genus of Snakes, established by Cuvier in his 

 division of the great genus Coluber. In Dr. Gray's arrangement of 

 the Snakes of the British Museum, it is 

 placed amongst the Hyfa-idce. The 

 Cerberi like the Pythons, next to which 

 they are placed in the ' Regne Animal,' 

 have nearly the whole of the head 

 covered with small scales, and plates 

 only between and before the eyes ; but 

 they are without the hooks or nails 

 near the vent. Cuvier further says 

 that they have also sometimes simple 

 plates at the base of the tail, but ob- 

 serves that whilst he has seen thia I 

 arrangement in one individual, he has I 

 remarked others of the same species 

 which had them all double ; a proof in 

 his opinion of the small importance of 

 the character. 



C. cinereui (Coluber Cerberus, Daudin), 

 the Karoo Bokadam. Russell, who 

 gives the native name above stated, 

 thus describes the species : 



" Abdominal scuta 144, subcaudal 

 squamsc 59. The head somewhat 

 broader than the neck, yet appears small in proportion to the trunk ; 

 a little convex above, compressed ou the sides, and projecting into a 

 short, obtuse, or subtruncate snout, on which the eyes and nostrils 



Head of Ccrlcnts. 



