Dicksonia. 
9 
esteem it very much, and the greater part keep it carefully in their houses, where this author 
has seen many. It grows on a stalk of about three feet in height ; the place by which it 
holds is a sort of navel, on which it turns and bows itself towards the herbs which serve it for 
nourishment, dying and withering away as soon as these herbs fail. Wolves love it and 
greedily devour it, because of its resemblance to a lamb. All this description contains 
nothing hitherto incredible ; but what the author adds, that this plant has really bones, blood, 
SCYTHIAN LAMB. 
The three figures on the left of the cut are adapted from old representations of the “ Lamb” ; 
while the actual rhizome with fronds springing from it is shown on the right. 
and flesh, whence it is called in the country by a Greek name Zophyte, that is, a plant- 
animal.” 
Those who are interested in learning further particulars of the history of the “ Scythian 
Lamb,” and of the fictions and traditions which were associated with it, will find abundant 
material in Breyn’s “ Dissertatiuncula de Agno Vegetabili Scythico, Borametz vulgo dicto,” 
published in the “Philosophical Transactions” (vol. xxxiii., pp. 353 — 360). The treatise is 
accompanied by a striking representation of the object described, of which the upper figure 
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