CHAP. 72. (48.)—VENOMOUS SEA-ANIMALS.
Nor yet are dire and venomous substances found wanting in the sea: such, for instance, as the sea-hare[2762] of the Indian seas, which is even poisonous by the very touch, and immediately produces vomiting and disarrangement of the stomach. In our seas it has the appearance of a shapeless mass, and only resembles the hare in colour; in India it resembles it in its larger size, and in its hair, which is only somewhat coarser: there it is never taken alive. An equally deadly animal is the sea-spider,[2763] which is especially dangerous for a sting which it has on the back: but there is nothing that is more to be dreaded than the sting which protrudes from the tail of the trygon,[2764] by our people known as the pastinaca, a weapon five inches in length. Fixing this in the root of a tree, the fish is able to kill it; it can pierce armour too, just as though with an arrow, and to the strength of iron it adds all the corrosive qualities of poison.