186 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



describes it as being poisonous to the touch, producing vomiting 

 and subsequent death, unless the antidote of " asses' milk 

 and asses' bones ground and boiled " be given to the victim. 

 Other observers thought the "onely aspect and sight thereof" 

 was poisonous, while another version of this superstition was 

 that if a human being touched an Aplysia, that person died. 

 Others said that the Sea-hare died, " which latter," says 

 Johnston, " would be the more probable result." 



Johnston, in his " Introduction to Conchology," quoting 

 from Cuvier's " Histoire des Mollusques," claims that the 

 celebrated Locusta used Aplysia " to destroy such as were 

 inimical to Nero ; it entered into the fata] potion which she 

 prepared for the tyrant himself, and which he had not the 

 resolution to swallow ; and Domitian was accused of having 

 given it to his brother Titus." There is, however, no foundation 

 for this story, which was probably quoted by Cuvier from the 

 1550 edition of the " Antiquarium lectionum " of Coelius 

 Rhodiginus, and does not occur in the original (1516) edition.* 



Apuleius, one of the first to investigate the internal 

 anatomy of Aplysia, was accused of magic and poisoning, and 

 the principal point of evidence brought forward at his trial 

 was that he had induced two fishermen to procure a Sea-hare. 

 To him belongs the earliest description of the teeth of the 

 first triturating stomach. He says they are " similar to the 

 ossicles or ankle bones of the hog, connected and joined." 

 Aelian says Aplysia " resembles a snail from which the shell 

 has been taken," but Dioscorides found the shell under the 

 mantle folds and compared Aplysia with a Cuttle-fish. 



In 1554, Rondelet, in his " De Piscibus Marinis," gave two 

 fairly good figures of Aplysia under the name Lepus marinus. 



* I am indebted to Dr. Charles Singer for unravelling this difficulty. 

 In the 1550 edition, produced by Camillio Bicchieri (Rhodiginus), the 

 statement about Locusta appeared for the first time, and was evolved, 

 Dr. Singer says, " out of his inner consciousness by putting together the 

 ideas of poison by Aplysia in Pliny and the exploits of Locusta." Bechmann, 

 in his " Beitrage zur Geschichte der Erfindungen," Leipzig, 1786-1805, 

 quotes also from the 1550 edition of Rhodiginus and copies the same errors. 



