68 
pliny's katueal histoet. [Book 11, 
The olive, the white poplar, and the willow turn their leaves 
round at the summer solstice. The herb pulegium, when 
dried and hanging up in a house, blossoms on the very day 
of the winter solstice, and bladders burst in consequence of 
their being distended with. air\ One might wonder at this, 
did we not observe every day, that the plant named helio- 
trope always looks towards the setting sun, and is, at all 
hours, turned towards him, even when he is obscured by 
clouds^. It is certain that the bodies of oysters and of 
whelks^, and of shell-fish generally, are increased in size and 
again diminished by the influence of the moon. Certain 
accurate observers have found out, that the entrails of the 
field-mouse"^ correspond in number to the moon's age, and 
that the very small animal, the ant, feels the power of this 
luminary, always resting from her labours at the change of 
the moon. And so miich the more disgraceful is our igno- 
rance, as every one acknowledges that the diseases in the 
eyes of certain beasts of burden increase and diminish ac- 
cording to the age of the moon. But the immensity of the 
heavens, divided as they are into seventy-two^ constellations, 
may serve as an excuse. These are the resemblances of cer- 
tain things, animate and inanimate, into which the learned | 
have divided the heavens. In these they have announced 
1600 stars, as being remarkable either for their effects or 
their appearance ; for example, in the tail of the Bull there 
are seven stars, which are named Vergilise^ ; in his forehead 
1 Cicero alludes to these opinions in his treatise De Divin. ii, 33 ; see j 
also Aul. GreUius, ix. 7. 1 
2 The hehotropium of the moderns has not the property here assigned 
to it, and it may be doubted whether it exists in any plant, except in a i 
very slight and imperfect degree : the subject will be considered more i 
fully in a subsequent part of the work, xxii. 29, where the author gives a \, 
more particular account of the hehotrope. ij 
N 3 " conchyhorum ; " this term appears to have been specifically apphed i 
to the animal fi-om which the Tyrian dye was procured. " 
4 " soricum fibras;" Alexandre remarks on these words, " fibras je- 
coris inteUige, id est, lobos infimos Lemaire, i. 318 ; but I do 
not see any ground for this interpretation. 
5 It does not appear from what source our author derived this number ; 
it is considerably greater than that stated by Ptolemy and the older astro- 
nomers. See the remarks of Hardouin and of Brotier ; Lemaire. i. 319. 
^ The Yergiliae or Pleiades are not in the tail of the Bull, according ta 
the celestial atlas of the moderns. i 
! 
