THEOPHRASTUS ON STONES
are experienced find the stone by digging it up; for when the animal ma\es water, it conceals this by heaping earth on top.
Theophrastus appears to be the first to relate this curious story, but whether he was the actual author of it is uncertain. He may have depended, as for some of his other information about lyngourion, on the statements of other writers, or, as is even more probable, he may be repeating a popular tale that was widely known and believed. This story undoubtedly arose from the name of the substance (lynx-urine), though its color and general appearance may also have been a factor in the origin of the story. It is not unlikely that someone tried to invent an etymology for the name after its original pronunciation and spelling had been corrupted and its real origin forgotten. Though Theophrastus fails to state explicitly in this treatise what animal was supposed to produce lyngourion, the lynx is specifically named in all later accounts. Thus, for example, the animal is so named in the accounts of Dioscorides and of Pliny that have already been quoted. The animal is also named by Pliny in other passages179 dealing with the subject, and in a fragment quoted by Photius180 Theophrastus specifically names the lynx as the animal whose urine was utilized for seals. Theophrastus does not say anywhere how the liquid urine was transformed into the solid stony substance, but Pliny is explicit on this point. In one place181 he states that the urine either congealed or dried, and in another place,182 where he seems to be depending more on the opinions of others, he says that it was the urine of the lynx and a kind of earth that hardened together to form the stone. Ovid183 remarks that the urine hardened on contact with air. It is clear from the variety of the explanations given by later authors, and even more from the other variations in the details of the story, that it must have been widely known, and lost nothing from being retold. The following passage from Pliny shows how many alterations were introduced into the story as it was passed along:
179 VIII, 137; XXXVII, 34.
"0 Bibliotheca (Bekker ed.), p. 528, col. 2.
181VIII, 137.
182XXXVII, 52.
18s Metamorphoses, XV, 415.
