464 
PLIOT's lyTATtJEAL HISTOBT. 
[Book XXX. 
tates delivery; care must be taken, however, to remove it 
immediately after. It is administered, too, in wine, mixed 
with frankincense : taken in any other form^ it is productive 
of abortion. A staff, by the aid of which a person has parted^ 
a frog from a snake, will accelerate parturition. Ashes of the 
troxallis,^^ applied with honey, act as an emmenagogue ; the f 
same, too, with the spider that descends as it spins its thread 
from aloft ; it must be taken, however, in the hollow of the 
hand, crushed, and applied accordingly : if, on the contrary, 
the spider is taken while ascending, it will arrest menstru- 
ation. 
The stone aetites,^^ that is found in the eagle's nest, preserves 
the foetus against all insidious attempts at producing abortion. 
A vulture's feather, placed beneath the feet of the woman, 
accelerates parturition. It is a well-known fact, that pregnant 
women must be on their guard against ravens' eggs, for if a 
female in that state should happen to step over one, she will 
be sure to miscarry by the mouth. A hawk's dung, taken in 
honied wine, would appear to render females fruitful. Goose- 
grease, or that of the swan, acts emolliently upon indurations 
and abscesses of the uterus. 
CSAP. 45. METHODS OE PEESERTlNa THE BEEASTS PROM INJUEY. 
Goose-grease, mixed up with oil of roses and a spider, pro- 
tects the breasts after delivery. The people of Phrygia and 
Lycaonia have made the discovery, that the grease of the otis 
is good for affections of the breasts, resulting from recent de- 
livery : for females affected with suffocations of the uterus, 
they employ a liniment made of beetles. The shells of par- 
tridges' eggs, burnt to ashes and mixed with cadmia^^ and 
wax, preserve the firmness of the breasts. It is generally 
thought, that if the egg of a partridge or ^' is passed 
three times round a wom^an's breasts, they will never become 
flaccid ; and that, if these eggs are swallowed, they will be 
productive of fruitfulness, and promote the plentiful secretion 
61 Ajasson has wasted ten hnes of indignation upon the question where 
such a staff is to be found ! 
65 See c. 16 of this Eook. ^6 gee B. xxxvi. e. 39. 
67 An impossibility. See B. x. c. 15, for the stories about the raven on 
which this notion was based. 
68 See B. X. cc. 29, 50. ^ See B. xxxiv. cc. 22, 23. 
See B. xxviii. c. 77- 
