[2317] Or “louse-bearing.” As Fée says, it is difficult to see the analogy.
[2318] The Taxus baccata of Linnæus. The account here given is in general very correct.
[2319] It is supposed that Pliny derives this notion as to the yew berry from Julius Cæsar, who says that “Cativulcus killed himself with the yew, a tree which grows in great abundance in Gaul and Germany.” It is, however, now known that the berry is quite innocuous; but the leaves and shoots are destructive of animal life.
[2320] “Viatoria;” probably not unlike our travelling flasks and pocket-pistols. This statement made by Pliny is not at all improbable.
[2321] This statement does not deserve a serious contradiction.
[2322] It is not improbable, however, that τόξον, an “arrow,” is of older date than “taxus,” as signifying the name of the yew.
[2323] Numerous varieties of the coniferæ supply us with tar, and Pliny is in error in deriving it solely from the torch-tree, the Pinus mugho of Linnæus.
[2324] See B. xxiv. c. 23.
[2325] It is still obtained in a similar way.
[2326] Fée remarks, that Pliny is in error here; this red, watery fluid formed in the extraction of tars, being quite a different thing from “cedrium,” the alkitran or kitran of the Arabs; which is not improbably made from a cedar, or perhaps the Juniperus Phœnicea, called “Cedrus” by the two Bauhins and Tournefort. He says that it is not likely that the Egyptians would use this red substance for the purpose of preserving the dead, charged as it is with empyreumatic oil, and destitute of all properties peculiar to resins.