Lions are never found overladen with fat. They take food or drink on alternate days, and fast if their digestion fails to operate. If they devour too much flesh, they put their claws into their mouths and extract it. The lion has a natural enmity for the wild ass. A sick lion eats an ape, as Ambrose says, or drains a dog’s blood. Pliny tells of a Syracusan whom a lion persistently followed until he extracted a splinter from its foot. Another lion insisted on having a bone removed from its teeth. Some manuscripts[1289] here insert from Pliny and Solinus the tale of the wiles of the lioness to conceal her amours with the pard, and the assertion that a lion wags its tail only when in good humor. When a lion begins to move it beats the ground with its tail but as it increases its speed lashes its back. When wounded it always takes note of the man who inflicted the wound and goes for him. If a man has hurled missiles at it but failed to hit it, the lion merely knocks him down. Philosopher says that when fighting for its cubs the lion keeps its gaze fixed on the ground so as not to be terrified by the spears of the hunters.
Medical virtues of the lion’s carcass.
Pliny recommends eating the flesh and heart of a lion to persons afflicted with colds. The lion’s bones are so hard that they strike fire like flint. The hollow in its bones is very small and rarely contains any marrow, and then only in the hip bones, as Experimenter[1290] says. Lion’s fat is an antidote for poisons, and a man anointed with it and wine puts to flight all beasts and snakes. It is hotter than the fat of any other quadruped. The lion is almost always feverish, and that with quartan fever. The effect of its roar upon other beasts is again mentioned. When crossing hard or stony ground the lion spares its claws since they are its weapons. Pliny asserts that lion fat with oil of roses keeps the face white and free from blotches. The neck bone of the lion is continuous and the flesh there cartilaginous like a muscle, so that it cannot turn its neck, a disability which some, the Liber rerum states, ascribe incorrectly to indignation or stolidity on the lion’s part. Aristotle says that the internal organs and teeth of a lion are like those of a dog.
Medieval and modern encyclopedias compared.
After this account in the De natura rerum the article on the lion in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica will be found rather dull reading and scanty as concerns the behavior of lions as well as the medicinal properties of their carcasses. Almost all of antiquity’s interesting assertions concerning lions are omitted, no doubt as false, but little of interest is supplied in their place. We are told a number of things that the lion will not do: he will not climb, he will not take more than three bounds after his prey. But even Thomas does not say that a lion ever climbs; the notion does not seem even to have occurred to him.[1291] Nor does Thomas assert that all lions are brave or noble or magnanimous. On the whole, the lion does not seem a subject upon which modern science has added vastly to our knowledge. There were far more lions in existence in antiquity, and men were more interested in them then, and thought at least that they knew more about them.
Examples of the zoology of the Experimenter.
Some notion of the work ascribed by Thomas to Experimentator may be gained from Thomas’s citations of it in his chapter on the wolf. Experimenter explains the fact stated by Ambrose, that a man who is seen first by a wolf cannot speak, by arguing that the rays from the wolf’s eyes dry up the spiritus of human vision which in its turn dries up the human spiritus generally. Thereby the wind-pipes are dried up and in consequence the throat so that man cannot speak. Experimenter states further that the wolf collects willow leaves in his mouth and makes a pile of them under which he hides in order to catch goats. And when walking over dry leaves he licks his paws so that the dogs will not hear him. An insulting reflection upon the canine sense of smell!
Fish, worms, and toads.
We will pass over Thomas’s books on birds, marine monsters, fish, and serpents, except to note in passing that Delisle credited him with supplying some new information concerning the medieval herring fisheries,[1292] and come to his separate treatment of “worms.” Those with only two or four feet have a little blood, but those with more feet than four are bloodless, because the blood is exhausted in providing nutrition for so many feet and because the motion of so many feet annihilates the blood. Many worms begin and end their life in the course of a summer, since they are born rather from corruption than from seed. Earthworms in particular are generated from pure and unadulterated earth with no admixture of semen, and so furnish illustration and proof of the virgin birth of Christ. In the opinion of the Liber rerum the toad is a worm. It is venomous and has a pestilential glance. It feeds on earth, eating as much as it can clutch in its forefoot, in which it is emblematic of avarice and cupidity. In Gaul there are big toads or frogs with a voice like a horn, but they lose their voice if taken outside of that country, typifying clergymen who like Jonah will not preach outside of their own land. Some manuscripts add from “Alexander”[1293] that toads are fond of the plant salvia and that it is sometimes poisoned by contact with them. Hence it is advised to touch a patch of salvia with rue, the dew from which is deadly to toads. A stone found in the head of a toad, if worn by a man, is an amulet against poison. Several toads can be generated from the ashes of a toad.
Solomon’s experiment in worms.