Before steam and all the other facilities for travel had made us so
well acquainted with the productions of remote parts of the earth as we
are at present, every traveller on his return astonished his auditors
or the readers of his works with accounts of monsters which existed
only as the creations of his ingenuity, and to give importance to his
discoveries. One out of many which could be produced, and which, as
they may afford innocent amusement, we purpose from time to time to
bring under the notice of the readers of the Penny Journal, we lately
met with in an account of Struy’s Travels through Russia, Tartary, &c.,
in the seventeenth century. The object of wonder was in this case the
Scythian or Tartarian lamb, a creature which, it was stated, sprang
from the ground like a plant, and, restrained to the spot on which it
was produced, devoured every vegetable production within its reach, and
was itself in turn eaten by the wolves of the country. This singular
production has since been found to be nothing more than a plant of the
fern tribe, the _Aspedium barometz_, found occasionally in arid plains,
where scarcely any other vegetable production can exist; it rises like
many others of the tree ferns with a rugged or shaggy stem; and the plant
having decayed or been uprooted by any accident, it is not impossible
that by means of a storm or otherwise it might be found supported on its
feet, namely, the stumps of the leaves; but that it pastured on other
plants, or was mistaken by the wolves for a lamb, although speculations
which the wonder-seeking traveller might be tempted to indulge in, it
need hardly be said are ornamental additions introduced to suit the taste
of the narrator, and to pander to that love of the marvellous which
prevailed in the age in which he lived. The following is his account of
this wonderful plant-animal:--
“On the western side of the Volga there is an elevated salt plain of
great extent, but wholly uncultivated and uninhabited. On this plain
(which furnishes all the neighbouring countries with salt) grows the
boranez, or bornitch. This wonderful plant has the shape and appearance
of a lamb, with feet, head, and tail distinctly formed. Boranez, in the
language of Muscovy, signifies a little lamb. Its skin is covered with
very white down, as soft as silk. The Tartars and Muscovites esteem it
highly, and preserve it with great care in their houses, where I have
seen many such lambs. The sailor who gave me one of those precious plants
found it in a wood, and had its skin made into an under-waistcoat. I
learned at Astrican from those who were best acquainted with the subject,
that the lamb grows upon a stalk about three feet high, that the part
by which it is sustained is a kind of navel, and that it turns itself
round, and bends down to reach the herbage which serves it for food.
They also said that it dries up and pines away when the grass fails.
To this I objected, that the languor and occasional withering might be
natural to it, as plants are accustomed to fade at certain times. To
this they replied, that they had also once thought so, but that numerous
experiments had proved the contrary to be the fact, such as cutting
away, or by other means corrupting or destroying the grass all around
it; after which they assured me that it fell into a languishing state
and decayed insensibly. These persons also added, that the wolves are
very fond of these vegetable lambs, and devour them with avidity, because
they resemble in taste the animals whose name they bear, and that in fact
they have bones, blood, and flesh, and hence they are called zoophytes,
or plant-animals. Many other things I was likewise told, which might,
however, appear scarcely probable to such as have not seen them.”