2 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The older writers made no fanciful remark when they stated 

 that, with the exception of pearls and ambergris, no product of 

 the sea was fraught with greater interest than the red or precious 

 coral of commerce. Its early history is obscure, but it is stated* 

 to have been an important article of trade with the Gauls, who 

 decorated their weapons and helmets with it. About the begin- 

 ning of the Christian era, however, the commerce in coral 

 between the Mediterranean and India seems to have absorbed so 

 much of the attention of the enterprising merchants that, Pliny 

 observes, it was even rare in the regions which produced it. 

 The natives of India considered this coral was endowed with 

 mysterious or sacred properties,t and that its wearer was pro- 

 tected from all evil, and that it was a cure for sterility ; nor need 

 we think them specially superstitious when we remember the tiny 

 bags of camphor suspended from our necks in childhood. 



The citizens of ancient Eome again hung it round their 

 children's necks as a charm " to preserve and fasten their teeth," 

 and to save them from "falling sickness": and in Italy even 

 now the wearer is protected from the " evil eye," and is cured of 

 certain maladies, while at the same time it prevents the skin of 

 the neck from being chafed.]: Gansius, further, lauded it as a 

 preservative from the effects of thunder, the shade of Satan, a 

 fertilizer of the field, and, when worn round the neck, a cure for 

 gastric pains and many other ills. § 



The economic aspects of coral (Co milium rubrum) thus for 

 ages formed the sole attraction to mankind, its very origin being 

 shrouded in mystery. At one time it was considered a petri- 

 faction, a red plant turned into stone by the touch of the 

 Gorgon's head or hand, and valued by the Persian as a talisman, 

 which, in the hour of triumph, purified the hand which had shed 

 blood. It was, moreover, supposed by such as Ovid, Sextus 

 Empiricus, and Boyle to be soft in the sea, and to be only solidified 

 by contact with the air. Theophrastes, a disciple of Aristotle, 

 Dioscorides, Pliny, Caesalpinus, Bay, Geoffroy, and Shaw con- 



* Encyclop. Brit., article " Red Coral," ninth edition, 1877. See in this 

 connection an interesting Address by Prof. Hickson on " Precious Corals," 

 1905, Manchester Microsc. Soc. 



f Ibid. \ Simmonds. 



§ Other maladies in which red coral was used are given by Prof. Hickson 

 o_p. cit. 



