In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the “Scythian Lamb” was made a subject of investigation and argument by some of the most celebrated writers of that period.
Fortunio Liceti, Professor of Philosophy at Padua, writing in 1518,[4] gives his complete credence to the story of the little beast like a lamb found within a fruit-pod when it bursts from over-ripeness; and besides the above passage from Odoricus quotes another, by which it would appear that the worthy friar afterwards himself saw this botanical curiosity, and described it as being “as white as snow.” I have been unable to find this paragraph in the Hakluyt edition of Odoricus’s travels.
[4] ‘De Spontaneo Viventium Ortu,’ lib. 3, cap. 45.
Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, however, in his ‘Historia Naturæ’ (Antwerp, 1605), also quotes these two passages, and in exactly the same words. He probably copied them from Liceti, and not from the original.
Sigismund, Baron von Herberstein, who, in 1517 and 1526, was the ambassador of the Emperors Maximilian I. and Charles V. to the “Grand Czard, or Duke of Muscovy,” in his ‘Notes on Russia,’[5] gives further details of this “vegetable-animal.” He writes:—“In the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, between the rivers Volga and Jaick, formerly dwelt the kings of the Zavolha, certain Tartars, in whose country is found a wonderful and almost incredible curiosity, of which Demetrius Danielovich, a person in high authority, gave me the following account; namely, that his father, who was once sent on an embassy by the Duke of Muscovy to the Tartar king of the country referred to, whilst he was there, saw and remarked, amongst other things, a certain seed like that of a melon, but rather rounder and longer, from which, when it was set in the earth, grew a plant resembling a lamb, and attaining to a height of about two and a half feet, and which was called in the language of the country ‘Borametz,’ or ‘the little Lamb.’ It had a head, eyes, ears, and all other parts of the body, as a newly-born lamb. He also stated that it had an exceedingly soft wool, which was frequently used for the manufacturing of head-coverings. Many persons also affirmed to me that they had seen this wool. Further, he told me that this plant, if plant it should be called, had blood, but not true flesh: that, in place of flesh, it had a substance similar to the flesh of the crab, and that its hoofs were not horny, like those of a lamb, but of hairs brought together into the form of the divided hoof of a living lamb. It was rooted by the navel in the middle of the belly, and devoured the surrounding herbage and grass, and lived as long as that lasted; but when there was no more within its reach the stem withered, and the lamb died. It was of so excellent a flavour that it was the favourite food of wolves and other rapacious animals. For myself,” adds the Baron, “although I had previously regarded these Borametz as fabulous, the accounts of it were confirmed to me by so many persons worthy of credence that I have thought it right to describe it; and this with the less hesitation because I was told by Guillaume Postel,[6] a man of much learning, that a person named Michel, interpreter of the Turkish and Arabic languages to the Republic of Venice, assured him that he had seen brought to Chalibontis (now Karaboghaz), on the south-eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, from Samarcand and other districts lying towards the south, the very soft and delicate wool of a certain plant used by the Mussulmans as padding for the small caps which they wear on their shaven heads, and also as a protection for their chests. He said, however, that he had not seen the plant, nor knew its name, except that it was called ‘Smarcandeos,’ and was a zoophyte, or plant-animal. The numerous descriptions given to him,” he added, “differed so little that he was induced to believe that there was more truthfulness in this matter than he had supposed, and to accept it as a fact redounding to the glory of the Sovereign Creator, to whom all things are possible.”
[5] ‘Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii,’ 1549. See [Appendix C].
[6] Author of ‘Liber de Causis, seu de Principiis et Originibus Naturæ,’ &c.
Shortly after the publication of the above narrative by Sigismund von Herberstein, and probably in allusion to it, Girolamo Cardano, of Pavia, carefully discussed the phenomenon in question in his work ‘De Rerum Naturâ,’[7] printed at Nürnberg in 1557. He endeavoured to expose the absurdity of the statements made concerning this “animal-plant,” and explained the physical impossibility of its existence in the manner described. He argued that if it had blood it must have a heart, and that the soil in which a plant grows is not fitted to supply a heart with movement and vital heat. He also pointed out that embryo animals, especially, require warmth for their development from the ovum, which they could not obtain if raised from a seed planted in the earth, demonstrating clearly enough that no warm-blooded animal could exist thus organically fastened to the earth. In reply, however, to a possible question suggested by himself, why there should be no plant-animal on land, seeing that there are zoophytes in the sea, he, with the weakness and indecision which were innate in his character, admitted that “where the atmosphere was thick and dense there might, perhaps, be a plant having sensation, and also imperfect flesh, such as that of mollusks and fishes.”
[7] Lib. vi. cap. 22.
This weak point in his argument laid him open to the criticism of his relentless enemy, Julius Cæsar Scaliger. Always on the watch to wound and harass Cardano with cutting satire and irritating gibes, this caustic persecutor lost no time in making his attack. In one of his “Exercitationes”[8] he thus personally addressed the object of his sneering disparagement:—