16 



THE APLYSIA, OR SEA-HARE. 



The name of the Sea-hare, or Lepus marinus, may not be 

 unknown to you, for, having acquired some notoriety as a 

 poison among the Romans, it is occasionally mentioned by 

 their classical authors. The animal is a Mollusk, not very 

 unlike a snail, and has got its Roman appellation because, 

 says Pliny, it resembles a hare in colour ; but since this is 

 not the case, others say from some distant resemblance which 

 a pliant fancy may find in its unformed shape to a hare in a 

 crouching position.* 



It held, or was supposed to hold, such a noxious sympathy 

 with man, that the " onely aspect thereof" was poisonous to 

 some ; to women great with child the sight produced un- 

 timely labour, and hence it was employed to discover con- 

 cealed pregnancy ; the touch of it was fatal, some say, to the 

 man who handled, others to the Mollusk, which latter doubt- 

 less would be the more probable result ; while others affirmed 

 only that the hair fell from the parts with which it came in 

 contact ; and all agreed that the odious fcetor which issued 

 from the body occasioned sickness and overturnings of the 

 stomach. That such a creature should afford a potent poison 

 was a reasonable inference, and it certainly formed one ingre- 

 dient of some of the poisonous draughts so much resorted to 

 in the corrupt days of Rome. Locusta used it to destroy 

 such as were inimical to Nero ; it entered into the fatal po- 

 tion which she prepared for the tyrant himself, and which he 

 had not resolution to swallow ; and Domitian was accused 

 of having given it to his brother Titus. To search after the 

 sea-hare was to render oneself suspected ; and when Apuleius 

 was accused of magic, because, forsooth, he had induced a 

 rich widow to marry him, the principal proof against him was 

 that he had hired the fishermen to procure him this fearful 



* See Swainson's figure of his Aplysia sicula, in his Treat. Malacology, 

 p. 247, fig. 45. 



