Note 379 — Chapter X

Ælian, XVI. 19, writes that these sea-hares were so poisonous, that if a man touched one thrown up on the shore with his hand, he shortly died, unless medicine was at once administered. So poisonous indeed are they, that “if you touch them with but your walking stick, there is the same danger which contact with a lizard evokes,” which in II. 5 is described τέθνηκεν ὁ κύριος τῆς λύγου! Nero, to “mak siccar” (like Kirkpatrick with the Red Comyn), employed the sea-hare as a dainty for friends whose deaths he earnestly desired. Cf. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VI. 32.