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BATRACHITES.
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eye,
and reflecting all kinds of hues, of virtue moreover indescribable,
like the ring of Gyges. Often too doth the dragon seize the Indian,
axe, charm, and all, and escape with him into his hole, all but making
the mountain tremble."
The
Hyaenia, existing within the eye of that beast, which was hunted in
order to procure it, placed under the tongue conferred the gift of
prophecy; and lastly, the Saurites was to be procured out of the belly
of a lizard cut open with a knife made' of a sharp reed.
Pliny
concludes his alphabetical list with this not uncalled-for observation
: " There are many stones besides these, and of an even more prodigious
description, to which writers have given foreign names, allowing them
to be minerals (lapides), and not gems; it will be enough for us to
have, in the foregoing list, exposed a few of their awful lies" (dira
mendacia).
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