390 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
COLLOQUY III. 
Do Ambee. 
[Ambergris — The fseces of the Cachelot or Sperm whale, Physeter 
macrocephaliis, Linn., which occurs abundantly in the Indian Ocean. J 
Garcia introduces the amhre as a medicine of which it is better to 
have a quantity than to know where it grows. It is called by the 
Arabs, ambar, and by the Latins, ambarum, and by all other nations 
the same, or with slight variation. Regarding its origin he says : — 
" Some have said that it is the sperm of the whale, others affirm that 
it is the excrement of an animal of the sea, or the foam of the sea, and 
others that it was produced from a fountain which sprung up from 
the bottom of the sea, and this appears better and more conformable to 
truth." Avicena and Serapion say that it is produced in the sea just as 
a fungus is produced on rocks and trees ; and that when the sea rolls 
tempestuously it casts up stones, and with them throws up the am- 
bergris. "When the east wind blew much of it was found on the coast of 
Africa, at Sofala, on the Comoro Islands, Emagoxa, and Mozambique ; 
and when the west wind blew it was found abundantly on the Mal- 
dives. He speaks of beaks of birds being sometimes found in it. These 
were, no doubt, the beaks of cuttlefish swallowed by the whales. 
[References. — Zinschoten, ii., pp. 92-94, 141, &c. ; Pontius and 
Piso, lib. iv., p. 41 ; Ainslie, i., 15 ; KJiory^ p. 103.] 
COLLOQUY lY. 
Do AmoiMO. 
[Round or cluster Cardamom — Fruit of Amomuni cardamom um, 
Linn. ?] 
Amama^ Arab ; pes columbinus, Latin ; pe de pomba, Portuguese. 
The source of this drug was unknown to Garcia, though he identi- 
fied a specimen of it by means of Dioscorides' drawings of simples, with 
the pe de pomba (pigeon's foot). 
[In the Phannacographia of Pluckiger and Hanbury the amomum 
of the ancients is identified as above, and is thus described : " round 
cardamoms are produced in small compact bunches. Each fruit is 
globular, -i%-th to -/oth of an inch in diameter, marked with longitudinal 
furrows, and sometimes distinctly three-lobed. The pericarp is thin, 
fragile, somewhat hairy, of a buff colour, enclosing a three-lobed mass 
of seeds, which are mostly shrivelled as if the fruit had been gathered 
