Dum Phaethontea formica vagatur in umbra
Implicuit tenuem succina gutta feram.
See also Hermann (Daniel), De rana et lacerta Succino Borussiaco insitis
(Cracov., 1580; a later edition, Rigæ, 1600). The great work on inclusa in amber is, however, that of Nathaniel Sendel. See the previous note.
Sir Thomas Browne must not be forgotten in this connexion. The Pseudodoxia (p. 64 of the second edition, 1650) says:
"Lastly, we will not omit what Bellabonus upon his own experiment writ from Dantzich unto Mellichius, as he hath left recorded in his chapter De Succino, that the bodies of Flies, Pismires and the like, which are said oft times to be included in Amber, are not reall but representative, as he discovered in severall pieces broke for that purpose. If so, the two famous Epigrams hereof in Martiall are but poeticall, the Pismire of Brassavolus Imaginary, and Cardans Mousoleum for a flie, a meer phancy. But hereunto we know not how to assent, as having met with some whose reals made good their representments." See also Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, line 169.
[114] Page 47, line 34. Page 47, line 40. Commemorant antiqui quod succinum festucas et paleas attrahit.—Pliny (book xxxvii., chap. ii., p. 606 of the English edition of 1601) thus narrates the point:
"Hee [Niceas] writeth also, that in Aegypt it [amber] is engendered.... Semblably in Syria, the women (saith hee) make wherves of it for their spindles, where they use to call it Harpax, because it will catch up leaves, straws, and fringes hanging to cloaths."
p. 608. "To come to the properties that Amber hath, If it bee well rubbed and chaufed betweene the fingers, the potentiall facultie that lieth within, is set on work, and brought into actual operation, whereby you shall see it to drawe chaffe strawes, drie leaves, yea, and thin rinds of the Linden or Tillet tree, after the same sort as loadstone draweth yron."
[115] Page 47, line 36. Page 47, line 42. Quod etiam facit Gagates lapis.—The properties of Jet were well known to the mediæval writers. Julius Solinus writes in De Mirabilibus, chapter xxxiv., Of Britaine (English version of 1587 by A. Golding):