The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3 (of 6)

Chapter 88: CHAP. 86.—THE MARROW: ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO MARROW.

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The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.

CHAP. 86.—THE MARROW: ANIMALS WHICH HAVE NO MARROW.

The marrow seems also to be formed of a similar material; in the young it is of a reddish colour, but it is white in the aged. It is only found in those bones which are hollow, and not in the tibiæ of horses or dogs; for which reason it is, that when the tibia is broken, the bone will not reunite, a process which is effected 309 by the flow of the marrow. The marrow is of a greasy nature in those animals which have fat, and suetty in those with horns. It is full of nerves, and is found only in the vertebral column 310 in those animals which have no bones, fishes, for instance. The bear has no marrow; and the lion has a little only in some few bones of the thighs and the brachia, which are of such extraordinary hardness that sparks may be emitted therefrom, as though from a flint-stone.