“It affords me much gratification to give you the information you desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna _Kilaim_, chap. viii. § 5 (a portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs:--‘Creatures called _Adne Hasadeh_ (literally, “lords of the field”) are regarded as beasts.’ There is a variant reading,--_Abne Hasadeh_ (stones of the field). A commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235), writes as follows on this passage:--‘It is stated in the Jerusalem Talmud that this is a human being of the mountains: it lives by means of its navel: if its navel be cut it cannot live. I have heard in the name of Rabbi Meir, the son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal called ‘_Jeduah_.’ This is the ‘_Jedoui_’ mentioned in Scripture (lit. _wizard_, Leviticus xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind of large stem issues from a root in the earth on which this animal, called ‘_Jadua_,’ grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the ‘_Jadua_’ has, in all respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its navel it is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature can approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills them. Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around. When they want to capture it no man dares approach it, but they tear at the stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.’ Another commentator, Rabbi Obadja of Berbinoro, gives the same explanation, only substituting--’They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,’ &c. The author of an ancient Hebrew work, Maase Tobia (Venice, 1705), gives an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page 786, he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds what he has found in ‘A New Work on Geography,’ namely, that ‘the Africans (_sic_) in Great Tartary, in the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds like the seeds of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a stem to the navel of an animal which is called _Borametz_ in their language, i.e. ‘_lamb_,’ on account of its resembling a lamb in all its limbs, from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its wool is adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its head, which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a cubit and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its taste is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it lives as long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which it derives its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal also dies away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except the wolf, which seeks to destroy it.’ The author concludes by expressing his belief, that this account of the animal having the shape of a lamb is more likely to be true than that it is of human form.”