To the great
majority
of such creatures man's is fatal.
Aristotle copy
The thrush and the starling hide; and of birds with crooked talons the kite and the owl hide for a few days.
17
Of viviparous quadrupeds the porcupine and the bear retire into concealment. The fact that the bear hides is well established, but there are doubts as to its motive for so doing, whether it be by reason of the cold or from some other cause. About this period the male and the female become so fat as to be hardly capable of motion. The female brings forth her young at this time, and remains in concealment until it is time to bring the cubs out; and she brings them out in spring, about three months after the winter solstice. The bear hides for at least forty days; during fourteen of these days it is said not to move at all, but during most of the subsequent days it moves, and from time to time wakes up. A she-bear in pregnancy has either never been caught at all or has been caught very seldom. There can be no doubt but that during this period they eat nothing; for in the first place they never emerge from their hiding-place, and further, when they are caught, their belly and intestines are found to be quite empty. It is also said that from no food being taken the gut almost closes up, and that in consequence the animal on first emerging takes to eating arum with the view of opening up and distending the gut.
The dormouse actually hides in a tree, and gets very fat at that period; as does also the white mouse of Pontus.
(Of animals that hide or go torpid some slough off what is called their 'old-age'. This name is applied to the outermost skin, and to the casing that envelops the developing organism. )
In discussing the case of terrestrial vivipara we stated that the reason for the bear's seeking concealment is an open question. We now proceed to treat of the tessellates. The tessellates for the most part go into hiding, and if their skin is soft they slough off their 'old-age', but not if the skin is shell-like, as is the shell of the tortoise-for, by the way, the tortoise and the fresh water tortoise belong to the tessellates. Thus, the old-age is sloughed off by the gecko, the lizard, and above all, by serpents; and they slough off the skin in springtime when emerging from their torpor, and again in the autumn. Vipers also slough off their skin both in spring and in autumn, and it is not the case, as some aver, that this species of the serpent family is exceptional in not sloughing. When the serpent begins to slough, the skin peels off at first from the eyes, so that any one ignorant of the phenomenon would suppose the animal were going blind; after that it peels off the head, and so on, until the creature presents to view only a white surface all over. The sloughing goes on for a day and a night, beginning with the head and ending with the tail. During the sloughing of the skin an inner layer comes to the surface, for the creature emerges just as the embryo from its afterbirth.
All insects that slough at all slough in the same way; as the silphe, and the empis or midge, and all the coleoptera, as for instance the cantharus-beetle. They all slough after the period of development; for just as the afterbirth breaks from off the young of the vivipara so the outer husk breaks off from around the young of the vermipara, in the same way both with the bee and the grasshopper. The cicada the moment after issuing from the husk goes and sits upon an olive tree or a reed; after the breaking up of the husk the creature issues out, leaving a little moisture behind, and after a short interval flies up into the air and sets a. chirping.
Of marine animals the crawfish and the lobster slough sometimes in the spring, and sometimes in autumn after parturition. Lobsters have been caught occasionally with the parts about the thorax soft, from the shell having there peeled off, and the lower parts hard, from the shell having not yet peeled off there; for, by the way, they do not slough in the same manner as the serpent. The crawfish hides for about five months. Crabs also slough off their old-age; this is generally allowed with regard to the soft-shelled crabs, and it is said to be the case with the testaceous kind, as for instance with the large 'granny' crab. When these animals slough their shell becomes soft all over, and as for the crab, it can scarcely crawl. These animals also do not cast their skins once and for all, but over and over again.
So much for the animals that go into hiding or torpidity, for the times at which, and the ways in which, they go; and so much also for the animals that slough off their old-age, and for the times at which they undergo the process.
18
Animals do not all thrive at the same seasons, nor do they thrive alike during all extremes of weather. Further animals of diverse species are in a diverse way healthy or sickly at certain seasons; and, in point of fact, some animals have ailments that are unknown to others. Birds thrive in times of drought, both in their general health and in regard to parturition, and this is especially the case with the cushat; fishes, however, with a few exceptions, thrive best in rainy weather; on the contrary rainy seasons are bad for birds-and so by the way is much drinking-and drought is bad for fishes. Birds of prey, as has been already stated, may in a general way be said never to drink at all, though Hesiod appears to have been ignorant of the fact, for in his story about the siege of Ninus he represents the eagle that presided over the auguries as in the act of drinking; all other birds drink, but drink sparingly, as is the case also with all other spongy-lunged oviparous animals. Sickness in birds may be diagnosed from their plumage, which is ruffled when they are sickly instead of lying smooth as when they are well.
19
The majority of fishes, as has been stated, thrive best in rainy seasons. Not only have they food in greater abundance at this time, but in a general way rain is wholesome for them just as it is for vegetation-for, by the way, kitchen vegetables, though artificially watered, derive benefit from rain; and the same remark applies even to reeds that grow in marshes, as they hardly grow at all without a rainfall. That rain is good for fishes may be inferred from the fact that most fishes migrate to the Euxine for the summer; for owing to the number of the rivers that discharge into this sea its water is exceptionally fresh, and the rivers bring down a large supply of food. Besides, a great number of fishes, such as the bonito and the mullet, swim up the rivers and thrive in the rivers and marshes. The sea-gudgeon also fattens in the rivers, and, as a rule, countries abounding in lagoons furnish unusually excellent fish. While most fishes, then, are benefited by rain, they are chiefly benefited by summer rain; or we may state the case thus, that rain is good for fishes in spring, summer, and autumn, and fine dry weather in winter. As a general rule what is good for men is good for fishes also.
Fishes do not thrive in cold places, and those fishes suffer most in severe winters that have a stone in their head, as the chromis, the basse, the sciaena, and the braize; for owing to the stone they get frozen with the cold, and are thrown up on shore.
Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on the contrary, unwholesome for the mullet, the cephalus, and the so-called marinus, for rain superinduces blindness in most of these fishes, and all the more rapidly if the rainfall be superabundant. The cephalus is peculiarly subject to this malady in severe winters; their eyes grow white, and when caught they are in poor condition, and eventually the disease kills them. It would appear that this disease is due to extreme cold even more than to an excessive rainfall; for instance, in many places and more especially in shallows off the coast of Nauplia, in the Argolid, a number of fishes have been known to be caught out at sea in seasons of severe cold. The gilthead also suffers in winter; the acharnas suffers in summer, and loses condition. The coracine is exceptional among fishes in deriving benefit from drought, and this is due to the fact that heat and drought are apt to come together.
Particular places suit particular fishes; some are naturally fishes of the shore, and some of the deep sea, and some are at home in one or the other of these regions, and others are common to the two and are at home in both. Some fishes will thrive in one particular spot, and in that spot only. As a general rule it may be said that places abounding in weeds are wholesome; at all events, fishes caught in such places are exceptionally fat: that is, such fishes a a habit all sorts of localities as well. The fact is that weed-eating fishes find abundance of their special food in such localities, and carnivorous fish find an unusually large number of smaller fish. It matters also whether the wind be from the north or south: the longer fish thrive better when a north wind prevails, and in summer at one and the same spot more long fish will be caught than flat fish with a north wind blowing.
The tunny and the sword-fish are infested with a parasite about the rising of the Dog-star; that is to say, about this time both these fishes have a grub beside their fins that is nicknamed the 'gadfly'. It resembles the scorpion in shape, and is about the size of the spider. So acute is the pain it inflicts that the sword-fish will often leap as high out of the water as a dolphin; in fact, it sometimes leaps over the bulwarks of a vessel and falls back on the deck. The tunny delights more than any other fish in the heat of the sun. It will burrow for warmth in the sand in shallow waters near to shore, or will, because it is warm, disport itself on the surface of the sea.
The fry of little fishes escape by being overlooked, for it is only the larger ones of the small species that fishes of the large species will pursue. The greater part of the spawn and the fry of fishes is destroyed by the heat of the sun, for whatever of them the sun reaches it spoils.
Fishes are caught in greatest abundance before sunrise and after sunset, or, speaking generally, just about sunset and sunrise. Fishermen haul up their nets at these times, and speak of the hauls then made as the 'nick-of-time' hauls. The fact is, that at these times fishes are particularly weak-sighted; at night they are at rest, and as the light grows stronger they see comparatively well.
We know of no pestilential malady attacking fishes, such as those which attack man, and horses and oxen among the quadrupedal vivipara, and certain species of other genera, domesticated and wild; but fishes do seem to suffer from sickness; and fishermen infer this from the fact that at times fishes in poor condition, and looking as though they were sick, and of altered colour, are caught in a large haul of well-conditioned fish of their own species. So much for sea-fishes.
20
River-fish and lake-fish also are exempt from diseases of a pestilential character, but certain species are subject to special and peculiar maladies. For instance, the sheat-fish just before the rising of the Dog-star, owing to its swimming near the surface of the water, is liable to sunstroke, and is paralysed by a loud peal of thunder. The carp is subject to the same eventualities but in a lesser degree. The sheatfish is destroyed in great quantities in shallow waters by the serpent called the dragon. In the balerus and tilon a worm is engendered about the rising of the Dog-star, that sickens these fish and causes them to rise towards the surface, where they are killed by the excessive heat. The chalcis is subject to a very violent malady; lice are engendered underneath their gills in great numbers, and cause destruction among them; but no other species of fish is subject to any such malady.
If mullein be introduced into water it will kill fish in its vicinity. It is used extensively for catching fish in rivers and ponds; by the Phoenicians it is made use of also in the sea.
There are two other methods employed for catch-fish. It is a known fact that in winter fishes emerge from the deep parts of rivers and, by the way, at all seasons fresh water is tolerably cold. A trench accordingly is dug leading into a river, and wattled at the river end with reeds and stones, an aperture being left in the wattling through which the river water flows into the trench; when the frost comes on the fish can be taken out of the trench in weels. Another method is adopted in summer and winter alike. They run across a stream a dam composed of brushwood and stones leaving a small open space, and in this space they insert a weel; they then coop the fish in towards this place, and draw them up in the weel as they swim through the open space.
Shell-fish, as a rule, are benefited by rainy weather. The purple murex is an exception; if it be placed on a shore near to where a river discharges, it will die within a day after tasting the fresh water. The murex lives for about fifty days after capture; during this period they feed off one another, as there grows on the shell a kind of sea-weed or sea-moss; if any food is thrown to them during this period, it is said to be done not to keep them alive, but to make them weigh more.
To shell-fish in general drought is unwholesome. During dry weather they decrease in size and degenerate in quality; and it is during such weather that the red scallop is found in more than usual abundance. In the Pyrrhaean Strait the clam was exterminated, partly by the dredging-machine used in their capture, and partly by long-continued droughts. Rainy weather is wholesome to the generality of shellfish owing to the fact that the sea-water then becomes exceptionally sweet. In the Euxine, owing to the coldness of the climate, shellfish are not found: nor yet in rivers, excepting a few bivalves here and there. Univalves, by the way, are very apt to freeze to death in extremely cold weather. So much for animals that live in water.
21
To turn to quadrupeds, the pig suffers from three diseases, one of which is called branchos, a disease attended with swellings about the windpipe and the jaws. It may break out in any part of the body; very often it attacks the foot, and occasionally the ear; the neighbouring parts also soon rot, and the decay goes on until it reaches the lungs, when the animal succumbs. The disease develops with great rapidity, and the moment it sets in the animal gives up eating. The swineherds know but one way to cure it, namely, by complete excision, when they detect the first signs of the disease. There are two other diseases, which are both alike termed craurus. The one is attended with pain and heaviness in the head, and this is the commoner of the two, the other with diarrhoea. The latter is incurable, the former is treated by applying wine fomentations to the snout and rinsing the nostrils with wine. Even this disease is very hard to cure; it has been known to kill within three or four days. The animal is chiefly subject to branchos when it gets extremely fat, and when the heat has brought a good supply of figs. The treatment is to feed on mashed mulberries, to give repeated warm baths, and to lance the under part of the tongue.
Pigs with flabby flesh are subject to measles about the legs, neck, and shoulders, for the pimples develop chiefly in these parts. If the pimples are few in number the flesh is comparatively sweet, but if they be numerous it gets watery and flaccid. The symptoms of measles are obvious, for the pimples show chiefly on the under side of the tongue, and if you pluck the bristles off the chine the skin will appear suffused with blood, and further the animal will be unable to keep its hind-feet at rest. Pigs never take this disease while they are mere sucklings. The pimples may be got rid of by feeding on this kind of spelt called tiphe; and this spelt, by the way, is very good for ordinary food. The best food for rearing and fattening pigs is chickpeas and figs, but the one thing essential is to vary the food as much as possible, for this animal, like animals in general lights in a change of diet; and it is said that one kind of food blows the animal out, that another superinduces flesh, and that another puts on fat, and that acorns, though liked by the animal, render the flesh flaccid. Besides, if a sow eats acorns in great quantities, it will miscarry, as is also the case with the ewe; and, indeed, the miscarriage is more certain in the case of the ewe than in the case of the sow. The pig is the only animal known to be subject to measles.
22
Dogs suffer from three diseases; rabies, quinsy, and sore feet. Rabies drives the animal mad, and ary animal whatever, excepting man, will take the disease if bitten by a dog so afflicted; the disease is fatal to the dog itself, and to any animal it may bite, man excepted. Quinsy also is fatal to dogs; and only a few recover from disease of the feet. The camel, like the dog, is subject to rabies. The elephant, which is reputed to enjoy immunity from all other illnesses, is occasionally subject to flatulency.
23
Cattle in herds are liable to two diseases, foot, sickness and craurus. In the former their feet suffer from eruptions, but the animal recovers from the disease without even the loss of the hoof. It is found of service to smear the horny parts with warm pitch. In craurus, the breath comes warm at short intervals; in fact, craurus in cattle answers to fever in man. The symptoms of the disease are drooping of the ears and disinclination for food. The animal soon succumbs, and when the carcase is opened the lungs are found to be rotten.
24
Horses out at pasture are free from all diseases excepting disease of the feet. From this disease they sometimes lose their hooves: but after losing them they grow them soon again, for as one hoof is decaying it is being replaced by another. Symptoms of the malady are a sinking in and wrinkling of the lip in the middle under the nostrils, and in the case of the male, a twitching of the right testicle.
Stall-reared horses are subject to very numerous forms of disease. They are liable to disease called 'eileus'. Under this disease the animal trails its hind-legs under its belly so far forward as almost to fall back on its haunches; if it goes without food for several days and turns rabid, it may be of service to draw blood, or to castrate the male. The animal is subject also to tetanus: the veins get rigid, as also the head and neck, and the animal walks with its legs stretched out straight. The horse suffers also from abscesses. Another painful illness afflicts them called the 'barley-surfeit'. The are a softening of the palate and heat of the breath; the animal may recover through the strength of its own constitution, but no formal remedies are of any avail.
There is also a disease called nymphia, in which the animal is said to stand still and droop its head on hearing flute-music; if during this ailment the horse be mounted, it will run off at a gallop until it is pulled. Even with this rabies in full force, it preserves a dejected spiritless appearance; some of the symptoms are a throwing back of the ears followed by a projection of them, great languor, and heavy breathing. Heart-ache also is incurable, of which the symptom is a drawing in of the flanks; and so is displacement of the bladder, which is accompanied by a retention of urine and a drawing up of the hooves and haunches. Neither is there any cure if the animal swallow the grape-beetle, which is about the size of the sphondyle or knuckle-beetle. The bite of the shrewmouse is dangerous to horses and other draught animals as well; it is followed by boils. The bite is all the more dangerous if the mouse be pregnant when she bites, for the boils then burst, but do not burst otherwise. The cicigna-called 'chalcis' by some, and 'zignis' by others-either causes death by its bite or, at all events, intense pain; it is like a small lizard, with the colour of the blind snake. In point of fact, according to experts, the horse and the sheep have pretty well as many ailments as the human species. The drug known under the name of 'sandarace' or realgar, is extremely injurious to a horse, and to all draught animals; it is given to the animal as a medicine in a solution of water, the liquid being filtered through a colander. The mare when pregnant apt to miscarry when disturbed by the odour of an extinguished candle; and a similar accident happens occasionally to women in their pregnancy. So much for the diseases of the horse.
The so-called hippomanes grows, as has stated, on the foal, and the mare nibbles it off as she licks and cleans the foal. All the curious stories connected with the hippomanes are due to old wives and to the venders of charms. What is called the 'polium' or foal's membrane, is, as all the accounts state, delivered by the mother before the foal appears.
A horse will recognize the neighing of any other horse with which it may have fought at any previous period. The horse delights in meadows and marshes, and likes to drink muddy water; in fact, if water be clear, the horse will trample in it to make it turbid, will then drink it, and afterwards will wallow in it. The animal is fond of water in every way, whether for drinking or for bathing purposes; and this explains the peculiar constitution of the hippopotamus or river-horse. In regard to water the ox is the opposite of the horse; for if the water be impure or cold, or mixed up with alien matter, it will refuse to drink it.
25
The ass suffers chiefly from one particular disease which they call 'melis'. It arises first in the head, and a clammy humour runs down the nostrils, thick and red; if it stays in the head the animal may recover, but if it descends into the lungs the animal will die. Of all animals on its of its kind it is the least capable of enduring extreme cold, which circumstance will account for the fact that the animal is not found on the shores of the Euxine, nor in Scythia.
26
Elephants suffer from flatulence, and when thus afflicted can void neither solid nor liquid residuum. If the elephant swallow earth-mould it suffers from relaxation; but if it go on taking it steadily, it will experience no harm. From time to time it takes to swallowing stones. It suffers also from diarrhoea: in this case they administer draughts of lukewarm water or dip its fodder in honey, and either one or the other prescription will prove a costive. When they suffer from insomnia, they will be restored to health if their shoulders be rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; when they have aches in their shoulders they will derive great benefit from the application of roast pork. Some elephants like olive oil, and others do not. If there is a bit of iron in the inside of an elephant it is said that it will pass out if the animal takes a drink of olive-oil; if the animal refuses olive-oil, they soak a root in the oil and give it the root to swallow. So much, then, for quadrupeds.
27
Insects, as a general rule, thrive best in the time of year in which they come into being, especially if the season be moist and warm, as in spring.
In bee-hives are found creatures that do great damage to the combs; for instance, the grub that spins a web and ruins the honeycomb: it is called the 'cleros'. It engenders an insect like itself, of a spider-shape, and brings disease into the swarm. There is another insect resembling the moth, called by some the 'pyraustes', that flies about a lighted candle: this creature engenders a brood full of a fine down. It is never stung by a bee, and can only be got out of a hive by fumigation. A caterpillar also is engendered in hives, of a species nicknamed the teredo, or 'borer', with which creature the bee never interferes. Bees suffer most when flowers are covered with mildew, or in seasons of drought.
All insects, without exception, die if they be smeared over with oil; and they die all the more rapidly if you smear their head with the oil and lay them out in the sun.
28
Variety in animal life may be produced by variety of locality: thus in one place an animal will not be found at all, in another it will be small, or short-lived, or will not thrive. Sometimes this sort of difference is observed in closely adjacent districts. Thus, in the territory of Miletus, in one district cicadas are found while there are none in the district close adjoining; and in Cephalenia there is a river on one side of which the cicada is found and not on the other. In Pordoselene there is a public road one side of which the weasel is found but not on the other. In Boeotia the mole is found in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Orchomenus, but there are none in Lebadia though it is in the immediate vicinity, and if a mole be transported from the one district to the other it will refuse to burrow in the soil. The hare cannot live in Ithaca if introduced there; in fact it will be found dead, turned towards the point of the beach where it was landed. The horseman-ant is not found in Sicily; the croaking frog has only recently appeared in the neighbourhood of Cyrene. In the whole of Libya there is neither wild boar, nor stag, nor wild goat; and in India, according to Ctesias-no very good authority, by the way-there are no swine, wild or tame, but animals that are devoid of blood and such as go into hiding or go torpid are all of immense size there. In the Euxine there are no small molluscs nor testaceans, except a few here and there; but in the Red Sea all the testaceans are exceedingly large. In Syria the sheep have tails a cubit in breadth; the goats have ears a span and a palm long, and some have ears that flap down to the ground; and the cattle have humps on their shoulders, like the camel. In Lycia goats are shorn for their fleece, just as sheep are in all other countries. In Libya the long-horned ram is born with horns, and not the ram only, as Homer' words it, but the ewe as well; in Pontus, on the confines of Scythia, the ram is without horns.
In Egypt animals, as a rule, are larger than their congeners in Greece, as the cow and the sheep; but some are less, as the dog, the wolf, the hare, the fox, the raven, and the hawk; others are of pretty much the same size, as the crow and the goat. The difference, where it exists, is attributed to the food, as being abundant in one case and insufficient in another, for instance for the wolf and the hawk; for provision is scanty for the carnivorous animals, small birds being scarce; food is scanty also for the hare and for all frugivorous animals, because neither the nuts nor the fruit last long.
In many places the climate will account for peculiarities; thus in Illyria, Thrace, and Epirus the ass is small, and in Gaul and in Scythia the ass is not found at all owing to the coldness of the climate of these countries. In Arabia the lizard is more than a cubit in length, and the mouse is much larger than our field-mouse, with its hind-legs a span long and its front legs the length of the first finger-joint. In Libya, according to all accounts, the length of the serpents is something appalling; sailors spin a yarn to the effect that some crews once put ashore and saw the bones of a number of oxen, and that they were sure that the oxen had been devoured by serpents, for, just as they were putting out to sea, serpents came chasing their galleys at full speed and overturned one galley and set upon the crew. Again, lions are more numerous in Libya, and in that district of Europe that lies between the Achelous and the Nessus; the leopard is more abundant in Asia Minor, and is not found in Europe at all. As a general rule, wild animals are at their wildest in Asia, at their boldest in Europe, and most diverse in form in Libya; in fact, there is an old saying, 'Always something fresh in Libya. '
It would appear that in that country animals of diverse species meet, on account of the rainless climate, at the watering-places, and there pair together; and that such pairs will often breed if they be nearly of the same size and have periods of gestation of the same length. For it is said that they are tamed down in their behaviour towards each other by extremity of thirst. And, by the way, unlike animals elsewhere, they require to drink more in wintertime than in summer: for they acquire the habit of not drinking in summer, owing to the circumstance that there is usually no water then; and the mice, if they drink, die. Elsewhere also bastard-animals are born to heterogeneous pairs; thus in Cyrene the wolf and the bitch will couple and breed; and the Laconian hound is a cross between the fox and the dog. They say that the Indian dog is a cross between the tiger and the bitch, not the first cross, but a cross in the third generation; for they say that the first cross is a savage creature. They take the bitch to a lonely spot and tie her up: if the tiger be in an amorous mood he will pair with her; if not he will eat her up, and this casualty is of frequent occurrence.
29
Locality will differentiate habits also: for instance, rugged highlands will not produce the same results as the soft lowlands. The animals of the highlands look fiercer and bolder, as is seen in the swine of Mount Athos; for a lowland boar is no match even for a mountain sow.
Again, locality is an important element in regard to the bite of an animal. Thus, in Pharos and other places, the bite of the scorpion is not dangerous; elsewhere-in Caria, for instances-where scorpions are venomous as well as plentiful and of large size, the sting is fatal to man or beast, even to the pig, and especially to a black pig, though the pig, by the way, is in general most singularly indifferent to the bite of any other creature. If a pig goes into water after being struck by the scorpion of Caria, it will surely die.
There is great variety in the effects produced by the bites of serpents. The asp is found in Libya; the so-called 'septic' drug is made from the body of the animal, and is the only remedy known for the bite of the original. Among the silphium, also, a snake is found, for the bite or which a certain stone is said to be a cure: a stone that is brought from the grave of an ancient king, which stone is put into water and drunk off. In certain parts of Italy the bite of the gecko is fatal. But the deadliest of all bites of venomous creatures is when one venomous animal has bitten another; as, for instance, a viper's after it has bitten a scorpion.
To the great majority of such creatures man's is fatal. There is a very little snake, by some entitled the 'holy-snake', which is dreaded by even the largest serpents. It is about an ell long, and hairy-looking; whenever it bites an animal, the flesh all round the wound will at once mortify. There is in India a small snake which is exceptional in this respect, that for its bite no specific whatever is known.
30
Animals also vary as to their condition of health in connexion with their pregnancy.
Testaceans, such as scallops and all the oyster-family, and crustaceans, such as the lobster family, are best when with spawn. Even in the case of the testacean we speak of spawning (or pregnancy); but whereas the crustaceans may be seen coupling and laying their spawn, this is never the case with testaceans. Molluscs are best in the breeding time, as the calamary, the sepia, and the octopus.
Fishes, when they begin to breed, are nearly all good for the table; but after the female has gone long with spawn they are good in some cases, and in others are out of season. The maenis, for instance, is good at the breeding time. The female of this fish is round, the male longer and flatter; when the female is beginning to breed the male turns black and mottled, and is quite unfit for the table; at this period he is nicknamed the 'goat'.
The wrasses called the owzel and the thrush, and the smaris have different colours at different seasons, as is the case with the plumage of certain birds; that is to say, they become black in the spring and after the spring get white again. The phycis also changes its hue: in general it is white, but in spring it is mottled; it is the only sea-fish which is said make a bed for itself, and the female lays her spawn in this bed or nest. The maenis, as was observed, changes its colour as does the smaris, and in summer-time changes back from whitish to black, the change being especially marked about the fins and gills. The coracine, like the maenis, is in best condition at breeding time; the mullet, the basse, and scaly fishes in general are in bad condition at this period. A few fish are in much the same condition at all times, whether with spawn or not, as the glaucus. Old fishes also are bad eating; the old tunny is unfit even for pickling, as a great part of its flesh wastes away with age, and the same wasting is observed in all old fishes. The age of a scaly fish may be told by the size and the hardness of its scales. An old tunny has been caught weighing fifteen talents, with the span of its tail two cubits and a palm broad.
River-fish and lake-fish are best after they have discharged the spawn in the case of the female and the milt in the case of the male: that is, when they have fully recovered from the exhaustion of such discharge. Some are good in the breeding time, as the saperdis, and some bad, as the sheat-fish. As a general rule, the male fish is better eating than the female; but the reverse holds good of the sheat-fish. The eels that are called females are the best for the table: they look as though they were female, but they really are not so.
Book IX
1
OF the animals that are comparatively obscure and short-lived the characters or dispositions are not so obvious to recognition as are those of animals that are longer-lived. These latter animals appear to have a natural capacity corresponding to each of the passions: to cunning or simplicity, courage or timidity, to good temper or to bad, and to other similar dispositions of mind.
Some also are capable of giving or receiving instruction-of receiving it from one another or from man: those that have the faculty of hearing, for instance; and, not to limit the matter to audible sound, such as can differentiate the suggested meanings of word and gesture.
In all genera in which the distinction of male and female is found, Nature makes a similar differentiation in the mental characteristics of the two sexes. This differentiation is the most obvious in the case of human kind and in that of the larger animals and the viviparous quadrupeds. In the case of these latter the female softer in character, is the sooner tamed, admits more readily of caressing, is more apt in the way of learning; as, for instance, in the Laconian breed of dogs the female is cleverer than the male. Of the Molossian breed of dogs, such as are employed in the chase are pretty much the same as those elsewhere; but sheep-dogs of this breed are superior to the others in size, and in the courage with which they face the attacks of wild animals.
Dogs that are born of a mixed breed between these two kinds are remarkable for courage and endurance of hard labour.
In all cases, excepting those of the bear and leopard, the female is less spirited than the male; in regard to the two exceptional cases, the superiority in courage rests with the female. With all other animals the female is softer in disposition than the male, is more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the young: the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female, more savage, more simple and less cunning. The traces of these differentiated characteristics are more or less visible everywhere, but they are especially visible where character is the more developed, and most of all in man.
The fact is, the nature of man is the most rounded off and complete, and consequently in man the qualities or capacities above referred to are found in their perfection. Hence woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory. She is also more wakeful, more shrinking, more difficult to rouse to action, and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment.
As was previously stated, the male is more courageous than the female, and more sympathetic in the way of standing by to help. Even in the case of molluscs, when the cuttle-fish is struck with the trident the male stands by to help the female; but when the male is struck the female runs away.
There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities or subsist on the food. If the means of subsistence run short, creatures of like kind will fight together. Thus it is said that seals which inhabit one and the same district will fight, male with male, and female with female, until one combatant kills the other, or one is driven away by the other; and their young do even in like manner.
All creatures are at enmity with the carnivores, and the carnivores with all the rest, for they all subsist on living creatures. Soothsayers take notice of cases where animals keep apart from one another, and cases where they congregate together; calling those that live at war with one another 'dissociates', and those that dwell in peace with one another 'associates'. One may go so far as to say that if there were no lack or stint of food, then those animals that are now afraid of man or are wild by nature would be tame and familiar with him, and in like manner with one another. This is shown by the way animals are treated in Egypt, for owing to the fact that food is constantly supplied to them the very fiercest creatures live peaceably together. The fact is they are tamed by kindness, and in some places crocodiles are tame to their priestly keeper from being fed by him. And elsewhere also the same phenomenon is to be observed.
The eagle and the snake are enemies, for the eagle lives on snakes; so are the ichneumon and the venom-spider, for the ichneumon preys upon the latter. In the case of birds, there is mutual enmity between the poecilis, the crested lark, the woodpecker (? ), and the chloreus, for they devour one another's eggs; so also between the crow and the owl; for, owing to the fact that the owl is dim-sighted by day, the crow at midday preys upon the owl's eggs, and the owl at night upon the crow's, each having the whip-hand of the other, turn and turn about, night and day.
There is enmity also between the owl and the wren; for the latter also devours the owl's eggs. In the daytime all other little birds flutter round the owl-a practice which is popularly termed 'admiring him'-buffet him, and pluck out his feathers; in consequence of this habit, bird-catchers use the owl as a decoy for catching little birds of all kinds.
The so-called presbys or 'old man' is at war with the weasel and the crow, for they prey on her eggs and her brood; and so the turtle-dove with the pyrallis, for they live in the same districts and on the same food; and so with the green wood pecker and the libyus; and so with kite and the raven, for, owing to his having the advantage from stronger talons and more rapid flight the former can steal whatever the latter is holding, so that it is food also that makes enemies of these. In like manner there is war between birds that get their living from the sea, as between the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe; and so between the buzzard on one side and the toad and snake on the other, for the buzzard preys upon the eggs of the two others; and so between the turtle-dove and the chloreus; the chloreus kills the dove, and the crow kills the so-called drummer-bird.
The aegolius, and birds of prey in general, prey upon the calaris, and consequently there is war between it and them; and so is there war between the gecko-lizard and the spider, for the former preys upon the latter; and so between the woodpecker and the heron, for the former preys upon the eggs and brood of the latter. And so between the aegithus and the ass, owing to the fact that the ass, in passing a furze-bush, rubs its sore and itching parts against the prickles; by so doing, and all the more if it brays, it topples the eggs and the brood out of the nest, the young ones tumble out in fright, and the mother-bird, to avenge this wrong, flies at the beast and pecks at his sore places.
The wolf is at war with the ass, the bull, and the fox, for as being a carnivore, he attacks these other animals; and so for the same reason with the fox and the circus, for the circus, being carnivorous and furnished with crooked talons, attacks and maims the animal. And so the raven is at war with the bull and the ass, for it flies at them, and strikes them, and pecks at their eyes; and so with the eagle and the heron, for the former, having crooked talons, attacks the latter, and the latter usually succumbs to the attack; and so the merlin with the vulture; and the crex with the eleus-owl, the blackbird, and the oriole (of this latter bird, by the way, the story goes that he was originally born out of a funeral pyre): the cause of warfare is that the crex injures both them and their young. The nuthatch and the wren are at war with the eagle; the nuthatch breaks the eagle's eggs, so the eagle is at war with it on special grounds, though, as a bird of prey, it carries on a general war all round. The horse and the anthus are enemies, and the horse will drive the bird out of the field where he is grazing: the bird feeds on grass, and sees too dimly to foresee an attack; it mimics the whinnying of the horse, flies at him, and tries to frighten him away; but the horse drives the bird away, and whenever he catches it he kills it: this bird lives beside rivers or on marsh ground; it has pretty plumage, and finds its without trouble. The ass is at enmity with the lizard, for the lizard sleeps in his manger, gets into his nostril, and prevents his eating.
Of herons there are three kinds: the ash coloured, the white, and the starry heron (or bittern). Of these the first mentioned submits with reluctance to the duties of incubation, or to union of the sexes; in fact, it screams during the union, and it is said drips blood from its eyes; it lays its eggs also in an awkward manner, not unattended with pain. It is at war with certain creatures that do it injury: with the eagle for robbing it, with the fox for worrying it at night, and with the lark for stealing its eggs.
The snake is at war with the weasel and the pig; with the weasel when they are both at home, for they live on the same food; with the pig for preying on her kind. The merlin is at war with the fox; it strikes and claws it, and, as it has crooked talons, it kills the animal's young. The raven and the fox are good friends, for the raven is at enmity with the merlin; and so when the merlin assails the fox the raven comes and helps the animal. The vulture and the merlin are mutual enemies, as being both furnished with crooked talons. The vulture fights with the eagle, and so, by the way, does does swan; and the swan is often victorious: moreover, of all birds swans are most prone to the killing of one another.
In regard to wild creatures, some sets are at enmity with other sets at all times and under all circumstances; others, as in the case of man and man, at special times and under incidental circumstances. The ass and the acanthis are enemies; for the bird lives on thistles, and the ass browses on thistles when they are young and tender. The anthus, the acanthis, and the aegithus are at enmity with one another; it is said that the blood of the anthus will not intercommingle with the blood of the aegithus. The crow and the heron are friends, as also are the sedge-bird and lark, the laedus and the celeus or green woodpecker; the woodpecker lives on the banks of rivers and beside brakes, the laedus lives on rocks and bills, and is greatly attached to its nesting-place. The piphinx, the harpe, and the kite are friends; as are the fox and the snake, for both burrow underground; so also are the blackbird and the turtle-dove. The lion and the thos or civet are enemies, for both are carnivorous and live on the same food. Elephants fight fiercely with one another, and stab one another with their tusks; of two combatants the beaten one gets completely cowed, and dreads the sound of his conqueror's voice. These animals differ from one another an extraordinary extent in the way of courage. Indians employ these animals for war purposes, irrespective of sex; the females, however, are less in size and much inferior in point of spirit. An elephant by pushing with his big tusks can batter down a wall, and will butt with his forehead at a palm until he brings it down, when he stamps on it and lays it in orderly fashion on the ground. Men hunt the elephant in the following way: they mount tame elephants of approved spirit and proceed in quest of wild animals; when they come up with these they bid the tame brutes to beat the wild ones until they tire the latter completely. Hereupon the driver mounts a wild brute and guides him with the application of his metal prong; after this the creature soon becomes tame, and obeys guidance. Now when the driver is on their back they are all tractable, but after he has dismounted, some are tame and others vicious; in the case of these latter, they tie their front-legs with ropes to keep them quiet. The animal is hunted whether young or full grown.
Thus we see that in the case of the creatures above mentioned their mutual friendship or the is due to the food they feed on and the life they lead.
2
Of fishes, such as swim in shoals together are friendly to one another; such as do not so swim are enemies. Some fishes swarm during the spawning season; others after they have spawned. To state the matter comprehensively, we may say that the following are shoaling fish: the tunny, the maenis, the sea-gudgeon, the bogue, the horse-mackerel, the coracine, the synodon or dentex, the red mullet, the sphyraena, the anthias, the eleginus, the atherine, the sarginus, the gar-fish, (the squid,) the rainbow-wrasse, the pelamyd, the mackerel, the coly-mackerel. Of these some not only swim in shoals, but go in pairs inside the shoal; the rest without exception swim in pairs, and only swim in shoals at certain periods: that is, as has been said, when they are heavy with spawn or after they have spawned.
The basse and the grey mullet are bitter enemies, but they swarm together at certain times; for at times not only do fishes of the same species swarm together, but also those whose feeding-grounds are identical or adjacent, if the food-supply be abundant. The grey mullet is often found alive with its tail lopped off, and the conger with all that part of its body removed that lies to the rear of the vent; in the case of the mullet the injury is wrought by the basse, in that of the conger-eel by the muraena. There is war between the larger and the lesser fishes: for the big fishes prey on the little ones. So much on the subject of marine animals.
3
The characters of animals, as has been observed, differ in respect to timidity, to gentleness, to courage, to tameness, to intelligence, and to stupidity.
The sheep is said to be naturally dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away to lonely places with no object in view; oftentimes in stormy weather it will stray from shelter; if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion; it will stay behind and perish unless the shepherd brings up the rams; it will then follow home.
If you catch hold of a goat's beard at the extremity-the beard is of a substance resembling hair-all the companion goats will stand stock still, staring at this particular goat in a kind of dumbfounderment.
You will have a warmer bed in amongst the goats than among the sheep, because the goats will be quieter and will creep up towards you; for the goat is more impatient of cold than the sheep.
Shepherds train sheep to close in together at a clap of their hands, for if, when a thunderstorm comes on, a ewe stays behind without closing in, the storm will kill it if it be with young; consequently if a sudden clap or noise is made, they close in together within the sheepfold by reason of their training.
Even bulls, when they are roaming by themselves apart from the herd, are killed by wild animals.
Sheep and goats lie crowded together, kin by kin. When the sun turns early towards its setting, the goats are said to lie no longer face to face, but back to back.
4
Cattle at pasture keep together in their accustomed herds, and if one animal strays away the rest will follow; consequently if the herdsmen lose one particular animal, they keep close watch on all the rest.
When mares with their colts pasture together in the same field, if one dam dies the others will take up the rearing of the colt. In point of fact, the mare appears to be singularly prone by nature to maternal fondness; in proof whereof a barren mare will steal the foal from its dam, will tend it with all the solicitude of a mother, but, as it will be unprovided with mother's milk, its solicitude will prove fatal to its charge.
5
Among wild quadrupeds the hind appears to be pre-eminently intelligent; for example, in its habit of bringing forth its young on the sides of public roads, where the fear of man forbids the approach of wild animals. Again, after parturition, it first swallows the afterbirth, then goes in quest of the seseli shrub, and after eating of it returns to its young. The mother takes its young betimes to her lair, so leading it to know its place of refuge in time of danger; this lair is a precipitous rock, with only one approach, and there it is said to hold its own against all comers. The male when it gets fat, which it does in a high degree in autumn, disappears, abandoning its usual resorts, apparently under an idea that its fatness facilitates its capture. They shed their horns in places difficult of access or discovery, whence the proverbial expression of 'the place where the stag sheds his horns'; the fact being that, as having parted with their weapons, they take care not to be seen. The saying is that no man has ever seen the animal's left horn; that the creature keeps it out of sight because it possesses some medicinal property.
In their first year stags grow no horns, but only an excrescence indicating where horns will be, this excrescence being short and thick. In their second year they grow their horns for the first time, straight in shape, like pegs for hanging clothes on; and on this account they have an appropriate nickname. In the third year the antlers are bifurcate; in the fourth year they grow trifurcate; and so they go on increasing in complexity until the creature is six years old: after this they grow their horns without any specific differentiation, so that you cannot by observation of them tell the animal's age. But the patriarchs of the herd may be told chiefly by two signs; in the first place they have few teeth or none at all, and, in the second place, they have ceased to grow the pointed tips to their antlers. The forward-pointing tips of the growing horns (that is to say the brow antlers), with which the animal meets attack, are technically termed its 'defenders'; with these the patriarchs are unprovided, and their antlers merely grow straight upwards. Stags shed their horns annually, in or about the month of May; after shedding, they conceal themselves, it is said, during the daytime, and, to avoid the flies, hide in thick copses; during this time, until they have grown their horns, they feed at night-time. The horns at first grow in a kind of skin envelope, and get rough by degrees; when they reach their full size the animal basks in the sun, to mature and dry them. When they need no longer rub them against tree-trunks they quit their hiding places, from a sense of security based upon the possession of arms defensive and offensive. An Achaeine stag has been caught with a quantity of green ivy grown over its horns, it having grown apparently, as on fresh green wood, when the horns were young and tender. When a stag is stung by a venom-spider or similar insect, it gathers crabs and eats them; it is said to be a good thing for man to drink the juice, but the taste is disagreeable. The hinds after parturition at once swallow the afterbirth, and it is impossible to secure it, for the hind catches it before it falls to the ground: now this substance is supposed to have medicinal properties. When hunted the creatures are caught by singing or pipe-playing on the part of the hunters; they are so pleased with the music that they lie down on the grass. If there be two hunters, one before their eyes sings or plays the pipe, the other keeps out of sight and shoots, at a signal given by the confederate. If the animal has its ears cocked, it can hear well and you cannot escape its ken; if its ears are down, you can.
6
When bears are running away from their pursuers they push their cubs in front of them, or take them up and carry them; when they are being overtaken they climb up a tree. When emerging from their winter-den, they at once take to eating cuckoo-pint, as has been said, and chew sticks of wood as though they were cutting teeth.
Many other quadrupeds help themselves in clever ways. Wild goats in Crete are said, when wounded by arrows, to go in search of dittany, which is supposed to have the property of ejecting arrows in the body. Dogs, when they are ill, eat some kind of grass and produce vomiting. The panther, after eating panther's-bane, tries to find some human excrement, which is said to heal its pain. This panther's-bane kills lions as well. Hunters hang up human excrement in a vessel attached to the boughs of a tree, to keep the animal from straying to any distance; the animal meets its end in leaping up to the branch and trying to get at the medicine. They say that the panther has found out that wild animals are fond of the scent it emits; that, when it goes a-hunting, it hides itself; that the other animals come nearer and nearer, and that by this stratagem it can catch even animals as swift of foot as stags.
The Egyptian ichneumon, when it sees the serpent called the asp, does not attack it until it has called in other ichneumons to help; to meet the blows and bites of their enemy the assailants beplaster themselves with mud, by first soaking in the river and then rolling on the ground.
When the crocodile yawns, the trochilus flies into his mouth and cleans his teeth. The trochilus gets his food thereby, and the crocodile gets ease and comfort; it makes no attempt to injure its little friend, but, when it wants it to go, it shakes its neck in warning, lest it should accidentally bite the bird.
The tortoise, when it has partaken of a snake, eats marjoram; this action has been actually observed. A man saw a tortoise perform this operation over and over again, and every time it plucked up some marjoram go back to partake of its prey; he thereupon pulled the marjoram up by the roots, and the consequence was the tortoise died. The weasel, when it fights with a snake, first eats wild rue, the smell of which is noxious to the snake. The dragon, when it eats fruit, swallows endive-juice; it has been seen in the act. Dogs, when they suffer from worms, eat the standing corn. Storks, and all other birds, when they get a wound fighting, apply marjoram to the place injured.
Many have seen the locust, when fighting with the snake get a tight hold of the snake by the neck. The weasel has a clever way of getting the better of birds; it tears their throats open, as wolves do with sheep. Weasels fight desperately with mice-catching snakes, as they both prey on the same animal.
In regard to the instinct of hedgehogs, it has been observed in many places that, when the wind is shifting from north to south, and from south to north, they shift the outlook of their earth-holes, and those that are kept in domestication shift over from one wall to the other. The story goes that a man in Byzantium got into high repute for foretelling a change of weather, all owing to his having noticed this habit of the hedgehog.
The polecat or marten is about as large as the smaller breed of Maltese dogs. In the thickness of its fur, in its look, in the white of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it is easily tamed; from its liking for honey it is a plague to bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat. Its genital organ, as has been said, consists of bone: the organ of the male is supposed to be a cure for strangury; doctors scrape it into powder, and administer it in that form.
7
In a general way in the lives of animals many resemblances to human life may be observed. Pre-eminent intelligence will be seen more in small creatures than in large ones, as is exemplified in the case of birds by the nest building of the swallow. In the same way as men do, the bird mixes mud and chaff together; if it runs short of mud, it souses its body in water and rolls about in the dry dust with wet feathers; furthermore, just as man does, it makes a bed of straw, putting hard material below for a foundation, and adapting all to suit its own size. Both parents co-operate in the rearing of the young; each of the parents will detect, with practised eye, the young one that has had a helping, and will take care it is not helped twice over; at first the parents will rid the nest of excrement, but, when the young are grown, they will teach their young to shift their position and let their excrement fall over the side of the nest.
Pigeons exhibit other phenomena with a similar likeness to the ways of humankind. In pairing the same male and the same female keep together; and the union is only broken by the death of one of the two parties. At the time of parturition in the female the sympathetic attentions of the male are extraordinary; if the female is afraid on account of the impending parturition to enter the nest, the male will beat her and force her to come in. When the young are born, he will take and masticate pieces of suitable food, will open the beaks of the fledglings, and inject these pieces, thus preparing them betimes to take food. (When the male bird is about to expel the the young ones from the nest he cohabits with them all. ) As a general rule these birds show this conjugal fidelity, but occasionally a female will cohabit with other than her mate. These birds are combative, and quarrel with one another, and enter each other's nests, though this occurs but seldom; at a distance from their nests this quarrelsomeness is less marked, but in the close neighbourhood of their nests they will fight desperately. A peculiarity common to the tame pigeon, the ring-dove and the turtle-dove is that they do not lean the head back when they are in the act of drinking, but only when they have fully quenched their thirst. The turtle-dove and the ring-dove both have but one mate, and let no other come nigh; both sexes co-operate in the process of incubation. It is difficult to distinguish between the sexes except by an examination of their interiors. Ring-doves are long-lived; cases have been known where such birds were twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some cases forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size, and pigeon-fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer no other perceptible disfigurement by their increase in age. Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as decoys, live for eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years. Ring-doves and turtle-doves always build their nests in the same place year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived than the female; but in the case of pigeons some assert that the male dies before the female, taking their inference from the statements of persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some declare that the male sparrow lives only a year, pointing to the fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has one later on, as though the blackbearded birds of the last year had all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived, on the grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and that their age is rendered manifest by the hardness about their beaks. Turtle-doves in summer live in cold places, (and in warm places during the winter); chaffinches affect warm habitations in summer and cold ones in winter.
8
Birds of a heavy build, such as quails, partridges, and the like, build no nests; indeed, where they are incapable of flight, it would be of no use if they could do so. After scraping a hole on a level piece of ground-and it is only in such a place that they lay their eggs-they cover it over with thorns and sticks for security against hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and hatch them; after the hatching is over, they at once lead the young out from the nest, as they are not able to fly afield for food for them. Quails and partridges, like barn-door hens, when they go to rest, gather their brood under their wings. Not to be discovered, as might be the case if they stayed long in one spot, they do not hatch the eggs where they laid them. When a man comes by chance upon a young brood, and tries to catch them, the hen-bird rolls in front of the hunter, pretending to be lame: the man every moment thinks he is on the point of catching her, and so she draws him on and on, until every one of her brood has had time to escape; hereupon she returns to the nest and calls the young back. The partridge lays not less than ten eggs, and often lays as many as sixteen. As has been observed, the bird has mischievous and deceitful habits. In the spring-time, a noisy scrimmage takes place, out of which the male-birds emerge each with a hen. Owing to the lecherous nature of the bird, and from a dislike to the hen sitting, the males, if they find any eggs, roll them over and over until they break them in pieces; to provide against this the female goes to a distance and lays the eggs, and often, under the stress of parturition, lays them in any chance spot that offers; if the male be near at hand, then to keep the eggs intact she refrains from visiting them. If she be seen by a man, then, just as with her fledged brood, she entices him off by showing herself close at his feet until she has drawn him to a distance. When the females have run away and taken to sitting, the males in a pack take to screaming and fighting; when thus engaged, they have the nickname of 'widowers'. The bird who is beaten follows his victor, and submits to be covered by him only; and the beaten bird is covered by a second one or by any other, only clandestinely without the victor's knowledge; this is so, not at all times, but at a particular season of the year, and with quails as well as with partridges. A similar proceeding takes place occasionally with barn-door cocks: for in temples, where cocks are set apart as dedicate without hens, they all as a matter of course tread any new-comer. Tame partridges tread wild birds, pecket their heads, and treat them with every possible outrage. The leader of the wild birds, with a counter-note of challenge, pushes forward to attack the decoy-bird, and after he has been netted, another advances with a similar note. This is what is done if the decoy be a male; but if it be a female that is the decoy and gives the note, and the leader of the wild birds give a counter one, the rest of the males set upon him and chase him away from the female for making advances to her instead of to them; in consequence of this the male often advances without uttering any cry, so that no other may hear him and come and give him battle; and experienced fowlers assert that sometimes the male bird, when he approaches the female, makes her keep silence, to avoid having to give battle to other males who might have heard him. The partridge has not only the note here referred to, but also a thin shrill cry and other notes. Oftentimes the hen-bird rises from off her brood when she sees the male showing attentions to the female decoy; she will give the counter note and remain still, so as to be trodden by him and divert him from the decoy. The quail and the partridge are so intent upon sexual union that they often come right in the way of the decoy-birds, and not seldom alight upon their heads. So much for the sexual proclivities of the partridge, for the way in which it is hunted, and the general nasty habits of the bird.
As has been said, quails and partridges build their nests upon the ground, and so also do some of the birds that are capable of sustained flight. Further, for instance, of such birds, the lark and the woodcock, as well as the quail, do not perch on a branch, but squat upon the ground.
9
The woodpecker does not squat on the ground, but pecks at the bark of trees to drive out from under it maggots and gnats; when they emerge, it licks them up with its tongue, which is large and flat. It can run up and down a tree in any way, even with the head downwards, like the gecko-lizard. For secure hold upon a tree, its claws are better adapted than those of the daw; it makes its way by sticking these claws into the bark. One species of woodpecker is smaller than a blackbird, and has small reddish speckles; a second species is larger than the blackbird, and a third is not much smaller than a barn-door hen. It builds a nest on trees, as has been said, on olive trees amongst others.
17
Of viviparous quadrupeds the porcupine and the bear retire into concealment. The fact that the bear hides is well established, but there are doubts as to its motive for so doing, whether it be by reason of the cold or from some other cause. About this period the male and the female become so fat as to be hardly capable of motion. The female brings forth her young at this time, and remains in concealment until it is time to bring the cubs out; and she brings them out in spring, about three months after the winter solstice. The bear hides for at least forty days; during fourteen of these days it is said not to move at all, but during most of the subsequent days it moves, and from time to time wakes up. A she-bear in pregnancy has either never been caught at all or has been caught very seldom. There can be no doubt but that during this period they eat nothing; for in the first place they never emerge from their hiding-place, and further, when they are caught, their belly and intestines are found to be quite empty. It is also said that from no food being taken the gut almost closes up, and that in consequence the animal on first emerging takes to eating arum with the view of opening up and distending the gut.
The dormouse actually hides in a tree, and gets very fat at that period; as does also the white mouse of Pontus.
(Of animals that hide or go torpid some slough off what is called their 'old-age'. This name is applied to the outermost skin, and to the casing that envelops the developing organism. )
In discussing the case of terrestrial vivipara we stated that the reason for the bear's seeking concealment is an open question. We now proceed to treat of the tessellates. The tessellates for the most part go into hiding, and if their skin is soft they slough off their 'old-age', but not if the skin is shell-like, as is the shell of the tortoise-for, by the way, the tortoise and the fresh water tortoise belong to the tessellates. Thus, the old-age is sloughed off by the gecko, the lizard, and above all, by serpents; and they slough off the skin in springtime when emerging from their torpor, and again in the autumn. Vipers also slough off their skin both in spring and in autumn, and it is not the case, as some aver, that this species of the serpent family is exceptional in not sloughing. When the serpent begins to slough, the skin peels off at first from the eyes, so that any one ignorant of the phenomenon would suppose the animal were going blind; after that it peels off the head, and so on, until the creature presents to view only a white surface all over. The sloughing goes on for a day and a night, beginning with the head and ending with the tail. During the sloughing of the skin an inner layer comes to the surface, for the creature emerges just as the embryo from its afterbirth.
All insects that slough at all slough in the same way; as the silphe, and the empis or midge, and all the coleoptera, as for instance the cantharus-beetle. They all slough after the period of development; for just as the afterbirth breaks from off the young of the vivipara so the outer husk breaks off from around the young of the vermipara, in the same way both with the bee and the grasshopper. The cicada the moment after issuing from the husk goes and sits upon an olive tree or a reed; after the breaking up of the husk the creature issues out, leaving a little moisture behind, and after a short interval flies up into the air and sets a. chirping.
Of marine animals the crawfish and the lobster slough sometimes in the spring, and sometimes in autumn after parturition. Lobsters have been caught occasionally with the parts about the thorax soft, from the shell having there peeled off, and the lower parts hard, from the shell having not yet peeled off there; for, by the way, they do not slough in the same manner as the serpent. The crawfish hides for about five months. Crabs also slough off their old-age; this is generally allowed with regard to the soft-shelled crabs, and it is said to be the case with the testaceous kind, as for instance with the large 'granny' crab. When these animals slough their shell becomes soft all over, and as for the crab, it can scarcely crawl. These animals also do not cast their skins once and for all, but over and over again.
So much for the animals that go into hiding or torpidity, for the times at which, and the ways in which, they go; and so much also for the animals that slough off their old-age, and for the times at which they undergo the process.
18
Animals do not all thrive at the same seasons, nor do they thrive alike during all extremes of weather. Further animals of diverse species are in a diverse way healthy or sickly at certain seasons; and, in point of fact, some animals have ailments that are unknown to others. Birds thrive in times of drought, both in their general health and in regard to parturition, and this is especially the case with the cushat; fishes, however, with a few exceptions, thrive best in rainy weather; on the contrary rainy seasons are bad for birds-and so by the way is much drinking-and drought is bad for fishes. Birds of prey, as has been already stated, may in a general way be said never to drink at all, though Hesiod appears to have been ignorant of the fact, for in his story about the siege of Ninus he represents the eagle that presided over the auguries as in the act of drinking; all other birds drink, but drink sparingly, as is the case also with all other spongy-lunged oviparous animals. Sickness in birds may be diagnosed from their plumage, which is ruffled when they are sickly instead of lying smooth as when they are well.
19
The majority of fishes, as has been stated, thrive best in rainy seasons. Not only have they food in greater abundance at this time, but in a general way rain is wholesome for them just as it is for vegetation-for, by the way, kitchen vegetables, though artificially watered, derive benefit from rain; and the same remark applies even to reeds that grow in marshes, as they hardly grow at all without a rainfall. That rain is good for fishes may be inferred from the fact that most fishes migrate to the Euxine for the summer; for owing to the number of the rivers that discharge into this sea its water is exceptionally fresh, and the rivers bring down a large supply of food. Besides, a great number of fishes, such as the bonito and the mullet, swim up the rivers and thrive in the rivers and marshes. The sea-gudgeon also fattens in the rivers, and, as a rule, countries abounding in lagoons furnish unusually excellent fish. While most fishes, then, are benefited by rain, they are chiefly benefited by summer rain; or we may state the case thus, that rain is good for fishes in spring, summer, and autumn, and fine dry weather in winter. As a general rule what is good for men is good for fishes also.
Fishes do not thrive in cold places, and those fishes suffer most in severe winters that have a stone in their head, as the chromis, the basse, the sciaena, and the braize; for owing to the stone they get frozen with the cold, and are thrown up on shore.
Whilst rain is wholesome for most fishes, it is, on the contrary, unwholesome for the mullet, the cephalus, and the so-called marinus, for rain superinduces blindness in most of these fishes, and all the more rapidly if the rainfall be superabundant. The cephalus is peculiarly subject to this malady in severe winters; their eyes grow white, and when caught they are in poor condition, and eventually the disease kills them. It would appear that this disease is due to extreme cold even more than to an excessive rainfall; for instance, in many places and more especially in shallows off the coast of Nauplia, in the Argolid, a number of fishes have been known to be caught out at sea in seasons of severe cold. The gilthead also suffers in winter; the acharnas suffers in summer, and loses condition. The coracine is exceptional among fishes in deriving benefit from drought, and this is due to the fact that heat and drought are apt to come together.
Particular places suit particular fishes; some are naturally fishes of the shore, and some of the deep sea, and some are at home in one or the other of these regions, and others are common to the two and are at home in both. Some fishes will thrive in one particular spot, and in that spot only. As a general rule it may be said that places abounding in weeds are wholesome; at all events, fishes caught in such places are exceptionally fat: that is, such fishes a a habit all sorts of localities as well. The fact is that weed-eating fishes find abundance of their special food in such localities, and carnivorous fish find an unusually large number of smaller fish. It matters also whether the wind be from the north or south: the longer fish thrive better when a north wind prevails, and in summer at one and the same spot more long fish will be caught than flat fish with a north wind blowing.
The tunny and the sword-fish are infested with a parasite about the rising of the Dog-star; that is to say, about this time both these fishes have a grub beside their fins that is nicknamed the 'gadfly'. It resembles the scorpion in shape, and is about the size of the spider. So acute is the pain it inflicts that the sword-fish will often leap as high out of the water as a dolphin; in fact, it sometimes leaps over the bulwarks of a vessel and falls back on the deck. The tunny delights more than any other fish in the heat of the sun. It will burrow for warmth in the sand in shallow waters near to shore, or will, because it is warm, disport itself on the surface of the sea.
The fry of little fishes escape by being overlooked, for it is only the larger ones of the small species that fishes of the large species will pursue. The greater part of the spawn and the fry of fishes is destroyed by the heat of the sun, for whatever of them the sun reaches it spoils.
Fishes are caught in greatest abundance before sunrise and after sunset, or, speaking generally, just about sunset and sunrise. Fishermen haul up their nets at these times, and speak of the hauls then made as the 'nick-of-time' hauls. The fact is, that at these times fishes are particularly weak-sighted; at night they are at rest, and as the light grows stronger they see comparatively well.
We know of no pestilential malady attacking fishes, such as those which attack man, and horses and oxen among the quadrupedal vivipara, and certain species of other genera, domesticated and wild; but fishes do seem to suffer from sickness; and fishermen infer this from the fact that at times fishes in poor condition, and looking as though they were sick, and of altered colour, are caught in a large haul of well-conditioned fish of their own species. So much for sea-fishes.
20
River-fish and lake-fish also are exempt from diseases of a pestilential character, but certain species are subject to special and peculiar maladies. For instance, the sheat-fish just before the rising of the Dog-star, owing to its swimming near the surface of the water, is liable to sunstroke, and is paralysed by a loud peal of thunder. The carp is subject to the same eventualities but in a lesser degree. The sheatfish is destroyed in great quantities in shallow waters by the serpent called the dragon. In the balerus and tilon a worm is engendered about the rising of the Dog-star, that sickens these fish and causes them to rise towards the surface, where they are killed by the excessive heat. The chalcis is subject to a very violent malady; lice are engendered underneath their gills in great numbers, and cause destruction among them; but no other species of fish is subject to any such malady.
If mullein be introduced into water it will kill fish in its vicinity. It is used extensively for catching fish in rivers and ponds; by the Phoenicians it is made use of also in the sea.
There are two other methods employed for catch-fish. It is a known fact that in winter fishes emerge from the deep parts of rivers and, by the way, at all seasons fresh water is tolerably cold. A trench accordingly is dug leading into a river, and wattled at the river end with reeds and stones, an aperture being left in the wattling through which the river water flows into the trench; when the frost comes on the fish can be taken out of the trench in weels. Another method is adopted in summer and winter alike. They run across a stream a dam composed of brushwood and stones leaving a small open space, and in this space they insert a weel; they then coop the fish in towards this place, and draw them up in the weel as they swim through the open space.
Shell-fish, as a rule, are benefited by rainy weather. The purple murex is an exception; if it be placed on a shore near to where a river discharges, it will die within a day after tasting the fresh water. The murex lives for about fifty days after capture; during this period they feed off one another, as there grows on the shell a kind of sea-weed or sea-moss; if any food is thrown to them during this period, it is said to be done not to keep them alive, but to make them weigh more.
To shell-fish in general drought is unwholesome. During dry weather they decrease in size and degenerate in quality; and it is during such weather that the red scallop is found in more than usual abundance. In the Pyrrhaean Strait the clam was exterminated, partly by the dredging-machine used in their capture, and partly by long-continued droughts. Rainy weather is wholesome to the generality of shellfish owing to the fact that the sea-water then becomes exceptionally sweet. In the Euxine, owing to the coldness of the climate, shellfish are not found: nor yet in rivers, excepting a few bivalves here and there. Univalves, by the way, are very apt to freeze to death in extremely cold weather. So much for animals that live in water.
21
To turn to quadrupeds, the pig suffers from three diseases, one of which is called branchos, a disease attended with swellings about the windpipe and the jaws. It may break out in any part of the body; very often it attacks the foot, and occasionally the ear; the neighbouring parts also soon rot, and the decay goes on until it reaches the lungs, when the animal succumbs. The disease develops with great rapidity, and the moment it sets in the animal gives up eating. The swineherds know but one way to cure it, namely, by complete excision, when they detect the first signs of the disease. There are two other diseases, which are both alike termed craurus. The one is attended with pain and heaviness in the head, and this is the commoner of the two, the other with diarrhoea. The latter is incurable, the former is treated by applying wine fomentations to the snout and rinsing the nostrils with wine. Even this disease is very hard to cure; it has been known to kill within three or four days. The animal is chiefly subject to branchos when it gets extremely fat, and when the heat has brought a good supply of figs. The treatment is to feed on mashed mulberries, to give repeated warm baths, and to lance the under part of the tongue.
Pigs with flabby flesh are subject to measles about the legs, neck, and shoulders, for the pimples develop chiefly in these parts. If the pimples are few in number the flesh is comparatively sweet, but if they be numerous it gets watery and flaccid. The symptoms of measles are obvious, for the pimples show chiefly on the under side of the tongue, and if you pluck the bristles off the chine the skin will appear suffused with blood, and further the animal will be unable to keep its hind-feet at rest. Pigs never take this disease while they are mere sucklings. The pimples may be got rid of by feeding on this kind of spelt called tiphe; and this spelt, by the way, is very good for ordinary food. The best food for rearing and fattening pigs is chickpeas and figs, but the one thing essential is to vary the food as much as possible, for this animal, like animals in general lights in a change of diet; and it is said that one kind of food blows the animal out, that another superinduces flesh, and that another puts on fat, and that acorns, though liked by the animal, render the flesh flaccid. Besides, if a sow eats acorns in great quantities, it will miscarry, as is also the case with the ewe; and, indeed, the miscarriage is more certain in the case of the ewe than in the case of the sow. The pig is the only animal known to be subject to measles.
22
Dogs suffer from three diseases; rabies, quinsy, and sore feet. Rabies drives the animal mad, and ary animal whatever, excepting man, will take the disease if bitten by a dog so afflicted; the disease is fatal to the dog itself, and to any animal it may bite, man excepted. Quinsy also is fatal to dogs; and only a few recover from disease of the feet. The camel, like the dog, is subject to rabies. The elephant, which is reputed to enjoy immunity from all other illnesses, is occasionally subject to flatulency.
23
Cattle in herds are liable to two diseases, foot, sickness and craurus. In the former their feet suffer from eruptions, but the animal recovers from the disease without even the loss of the hoof. It is found of service to smear the horny parts with warm pitch. In craurus, the breath comes warm at short intervals; in fact, craurus in cattle answers to fever in man. The symptoms of the disease are drooping of the ears and disinclination for food. The animal soon succumbs, and when the carcase is opened the lungs are found to be rotten.
24
Horses out at pasture are free from all diseases excepting disease of the feet. From this disease they sometimes lose their hooves: but after losing them they grow them soon again, for as one hoof is decaying it is being replaced by another. Symptoms of the malady are a sinking in and wrinkling of the lip in the middle under the nostrils, and in the case of the male, a twitching of the right testicle.
Stall-reared horses are subject to very numerous forms of disease. They are liable to disease called 'eileus'. Under this disease the animal trails its hind-legs under its belly so far forward as almost to fall back on its haunches; if it goes without food for several days and turns rabid, it may be of service to draw blood, or to castrate the male. The animal is subject also to tetanus: the veins get rigid, as also the head and neck, and the animal walks with its legs stretched out straight. The horse suffers also from abscesses. Another painful illness afflicts them called the 'barley-surfeit'. The are a softening of the palate and heat of the breath; the animal may recover through the strength of its own constitution, but no formal remedies are of any avail.
There is also a disease called nymphia, in which the animal is said to stand still and droop its head on hearing flute-music; if during this ailment the horse be mounted, it will run off at a gallop until it is pulled. Even with this rabies in full force, it preserves a dejected spiritless appearance; some of the symptoms are a throwing back of the ears followed by a projection of them, great languor, and heavy breathing. Heart-ache also is incurable, of which the symptom is a drawing in of the flanks; and so is displacement of the bladder, which is accompanied by a retention of urine and a drawing up of the hooves and haunches. Neither is there any cure if the animal swallow the grape-beetle, which is about the size of the sphondyle or knuckle-beetle. The bite of the shrewmouse is dangerous to horses and other draught animals as well; it is followed by boils. The bite is all the more dangerous if the mouse be pregnant when she bites, for the boils then burst, but do not burst otherwise. The cicigna-called 'chalcis' by some, and 'zignis' by others-either causes death by its bite or, at all events, intense pain; it is like a small lizard, with the colour of the blind snake. In point of fact, according to experts, the horse and the sheep have pretty well as many ailments as the human species. The drug known under the name of 'sandarace' or realgar, is extremely injurious to a horse, and to all draught animals; it is given to the animal as a medicine in a solution of water, the liquid being filtered through a colander. The mare when pregnant apt to miscarry when disturbed by the odour of an extinguished candle; and a similar accident happens occasionally to women in their pregnancy. So much for the diseases of the horse.
The so-called hippomanes grows, as has stated, on the foal, and the mare nibbles it off as she licks and cleans the foal. All the curious stories connected with the hippomanes are due to old wives and to the venders of charms. What is called the 'polium' or foal's membrane, is, as all the accounts state, delivered by the mother before the foal appears.
A horse will recognize the neighing of any other horse with which it may have fought at any previous period. The horse delights in meadows and marshes, and likes to drink muddy water; in fact, if water be clear, the horse will trample in it to make it turbid, will then drink it, and afterwards will wallow in it. The animal is fond of water in every way, whether for drinking or for bathing purposes; and this explains the peculiar constitution of the hippopotamus or river-horse. In regard to water the ox is the opposite of the horse; for if the water be impure or cold, or mixed up with alien matter, it will refuse to drink it.
25
The ass suffers chiefly from one particular disease which they call 'melis'. It arises first in the head, and a clammy humour runs down the nostrils, thick and red; if it stays in the head the animal may recover, but if it descends into the lungs the animal will die. Of all animals on its of its kind it is the least capable of enduring extreme cold, which circumstance will account for the fact that the animal is not found on the shores of the Euxine, nor in Scythia.
26
Elephants suffer from flatulence, and when thus afflicted can void neither solid nor liquid residuum. If the elephant swallow earth-mould it suffers from relaxation; but if it go on taking it steadily, it will experience no harm. From time to time it takes to swallowing stones. It suffers also from diarrhoea: in this case they administer draughts of lukewarm water or dip its fodder in honey, and either one or the other prescription will prove a costive. When they suffer from insomnia, they will be restored to health if their shoulders be rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; when they have aches in their shoulders they will derive great benefit from the application of roast pork. Some elephants like olive oil, and others do not. If there is a bit of iron in the inside of an elephant it is said that it will pass out if the animal takes a drink of olive-oil; if the animal refuses olive-oil, they soak a root in the oil and give it the root to swallow. So much, then, for quadrupeds.
27
Insects, as a general rule, thrive best in the time of year in which they come into being, especially if the season be moist and warm, as in spring.
In bee-hives are found creatures that do great damage to the combs; for instance, the grub that spins a web and ruins the honeycomb: it is called the 'cleros'. It engenders an insect like itself, of a spider-shape, and brings disease into the swarm. There is another insect resembling the moth, called by some the 'pyraustes', that flies about a lighted candle: this creature engenders a brood full of a fine down. It is never stung by a bee, and can only be got out of a hive by fumigation. A caterpillar also is engendered in hives, of a species nicknamed the teredo, or 'borer', with which creature the bee never interferes. Bees suffer most when flowers are covered with mildew, or in seasons of drought.
All insects, without exception, die if they be smeared over with oil; and they die all the more rapidly if you smear their head with the oil and lay them out in the sun.
28
Variety in animal life may be produced by variety of locality: thus in one place an animal will not be found at all, in another it will be small, or short-lived, or will not thrive. Sometimes this sort of difference is observed in closely adjacent districts. Thus, in the territory of Miletus, in one district cicadas are found while there are none in the district close adjoining; and in Cephalenia there is a river on one side of which the cicada is found and not on the other. In Pordoselene there is a public road one side of which the weasel is found but not on the other. In Boeotia the mole is found in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Orchomenus, but there are none in Lebadia though it is in the immediate vicinity, and if a mole be transported from the one district to the other it will refuse to burrow in the soil. The hare cannot live in Ithaca if introduced there; in fact it will be found dead, turned towards the point of the beach where it was landed. The horseman-ant is not found in Sicily; the croaking frog has only recently appeared in the neighbourhood of Cyrene. In the whole of Libya there is neither wild boar, nor stag, nor wild goat; and in India, according to Ctesias-no very good authority, by the way-there are no swine, wild or tame, but animals that are devoid of blood and such as go into hiding or go torpid are all of immense size there. In the Euxine there are no small molluscs nor testaceans, except a few here and there; but in the Red Sea all the testaceans are exceedingly large. In Syria the sheep have tails a cubit in breadth; the goats have ears a span and a palm long, and some have ears that flap down to the ground; and the cattle have humps on their shoulders, like the camel. In Lycia goats are shorn for their fleece, just as sheep are in all other countries. In Libya the long-horned ram is born with horns, and not the ram only, as Homer' words it, but the ewe as well; in Pontus, on the confines of Scythia, the ram is without horns.
In Egypt animals, as a rule, are larger than their congeners in Greece, as the cow and the sheep; but some are less, as the dog, the wolf, the hare, the fox, the raven, and the hawk; others are of pretty much the same size, as the crow and the goat. The difference, where it exists, is attributed to the food, as being abundant in one case and insufficient in another, for instance for the wolf and the hawk; for provision is scanty for the carnivorous animals, small birds being scarce; food is scanty also for the hare and for all frugivorous animals, because neither the nuts nor the fruit last long.
In many places the climate will account for peculiarities; thus in Illyria, Thrace, and Epirus the ass is small, and in Gaul and in Scythia the ass is not found at all owing to the coldness of the climate of these countries. In Arabia the lizard is more than a cubit in length, and the mouse is much larger than our field-mouse, with its hind-legs a span long and its front legs the length of the first finger-joint. In Libya, according to all accounts, the length of the serpents is something appalling; sailors spin a yarn to the effect that some crews once put ashore and saw the bones of a number of oxen, and that they were sure that the oxen had been devoured by serpents, for, just as they were putting out to sea, serpents came chasing their galleys at full speed and overturned one galley and set upon the crew. Again, lions are more numerous in Libya, and in that district of Europe that lies between the Achelous and the Nessus; the leopard is more abundant in Asia Minor, and is not found in Europe at all. As a general rule, wild animals are at their wildest in Asia, at their boldest in Europe, and most diverse in form in Libya; in fact, there is an old saying, 'Always something fresh in Libya. '
It would appear that in that country animals of diverse species meet, on account of the rainless climate, at the watering-places, and there pair together; and that such pairs will often breed if they be nearly of the same size and have periods of gestation of the same length. For it is said that they are tamed down in their behaviour towards each other by extremity of thirst. And, by the way, unlike animals elsewhere, they require to drink more in wintertime than in summer: for they acquire the habit of not drinking in summer, owing to the circumstance that there is usually no water then; and the mice, if they drink, die. Elsewhere also bastard-animals are born to heterogeneous pairs; thus in Cyrene the wolf and the bitch will couple and breed; and the Laconian hound is a cross between the fox and the dog. They say that the Indian dog is a cross between the tiger and the bitch, not the first cross, but a cross in the third generation; for they say that the first cross is a savage creature. They take the bitch to a lonely spot and tie her up: if the tiger be in an amorous mood he will pair with her; if not he will eat her up, and this casualty is of frequent occurrence.
29
Locality will differentiate habits also: for instance, rugged highlands will not produce the same results as the soft lowlands. The animals of the highlands look fiercer and bolder, as is seen in the swine of Mount Athos; for a lowland boar is no match even for a mountain sow.
Again, locality is an important element in regard to the bite of an animal. Thus, in Pharos and other places, the bite of the scorpion is not dangerous; elsewhere-in Caria, for instances-where scorpions are venomous as well as plentiful and of large size, the sting is fatal to man or beast, even to the pig, and especially to a black pig, though the pig, by the way, is in general most singularly indifferent to the bite of any other creature. If a pig goes into water after being struck by the scorpion of Caria, it will surely die.
There is great variety in the effects produced by the bites of serpents. The asp is found in Libya; the so-called 'septic' drug is made from the body of the animal, and is the only remedy known for the bite of the original. Among the silphium, also, a snake is found, for the bite or which a certain stone is said to be a cure: a stone that is brought from the grave of an ancient king, which stone is put into water and drunk off. In certain parts of Italy the bite of the gecko is fatal. But the deadliest of all bites of venomous creatures is when one venomous animal has bitten another; as, for instance, a viper's after it has bitten a scorpion.
To the great majority of such creatures man's is fatal. There is a very little snake, by some entitled the 'holy-snake', which is dreaded by even the largest serpents. It is about an ell long, and hairy-looking; whenever it bites an animal, the flesh all round the wound will at once mortify. There is in India a small snake which is exceptional in this respect, that for its bite no specific whatever is known.
30
Animals also vary as to their condition of health in connexion with their pregnancy.
Testaceans, such as scallops and all the oyster-family, and crustaceans, such as the lobster family, are best when with spawn. Even in the case of the testacean we speak of spawning (or pregnancy); but whereas the crustaceans may be seen coupling and laying their spawn, this is never the case with testaceans. Molluscs are best in the breeding time, as the calamary, the sepia, and the octopus.
Fishes, when they begin to breed, are nearly all good for the table; but after the female has gone long with spawn they are good in some cases, and in others are out of season. The maenis, for instance, is good at the breeding time. The female of this fish is round, the male longer and flatter; when the female is beginning to breed the male turns black and mottled, and is quite unfit for the table; at this period he is nicknamed the 'goat'.
The wrasses called the owzel and the thrush, and the smaris have different colours at different seasons, as is the case with the plumage of certain birds; that is to say, they become black in the spring and after the spring get white again. The phycis also changes its hue: in general it is white, but in spring it is mottled; it is the only sea-fish which is said make a bed for itself, and the female lays her spawn in this bed or nest. The maenis, as was observed, changes its colour as does the smaris, and in summer-time changes back from whitish to black, the change being especially marked about the fins and gills. The coracine, like the maenis, is in best condition at breeding time; the mullet, the basse, and scaly fishes in general are in bad condition at this period. A few fish are in much the same condition at all times, whether with spawn or not, as the glaucus. Old fishes also are bad eating; the old tunny is unfit even for pickling, as a great part of its flesh wastes away with age, and the same wasting is observed in all old fishes. The age of a scaly fish may be told by the size and the hardness of its scales. An old tunny has been caught weighing fifteen talents, with the span of its tail two cubits and a palm broad.
River-fish and lake-fish are best after they have discharged the spawn in the case of the female and the milt in the case of the male: that is, when they have fully recovered from the exhaustion of such discharge. Some are good in the breeding time, as the saperdis, and some bad, as the sheat-fish. As a general rule, the male fish is better eating than the female; but the reverse holds good of the sheat-fish. The eels that are called females are the best for the table: they look as though they were female, but they really are not so.
Book IX
1
OF the animals that are comparatively obscure and short-lived the characters or dispositions are not so obvious to recognition as are those of animals that are longer-lived. These latter animals appear to have a natural capacity corresponding to each of the passions: to cunning or simplicity, courage or timidity, to good temper or to bad, and to other similar dispositions of mind.
Some also are capable of giving or receiving instruction-of receiving it from one another or from man: those that have the faculty of hearing, for instance; and, not to limit the matter to audible sound, such as can differentiate the suggested meanings of word and gesture.
In all genera in which the distinction of male and female is found, Nature makes a similar differentiation in the mental characteristics of the two sexes. This differentiation is the most obvious in the case of human kind and in that of the larger animals and the viviparous quadrupeds. In the case of these latter the female softer in character, is the sooner tamed, admits more readily of caressing, is more apt in the way of learning; as, for instance, in the Laconian breed of dogs the female is cleverer than the male. Of the Molossian breed of dogs, such as are employed in the chase are pretty much the same as those elsewhere; but sheep-dogs of this breed are superior to the others in size, and in the courage with which they face the attacks of wild animals.
Dogs that are born of a mixed breed between these two kinds are remarkable for courage and endurance of hard labour.
In all cases, excepting those of the bear and leopard, the female is less spirited than the male; in regard to the two exceptional cases, the superiority in courage rests with the female. With all other animals the female is softer in disposition than the male, is more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the young: the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female, more savage, more simple and less cunning. The traces of these differentiated characteristics are more or less visible everywhere, but they are especially visible where character is the more developed, and most of all in man.
The fact is, the nature of man is the most rounded off and complete, and consequently in man the qualities or capacities above referred to are found in their perfection. Hence woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory. She is also more wakeful, more shrinking, more difficult to rouse to action, and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment.
As was previously stated, the male is more courageous than the female, and more sympathetic in the way of standing by to help. Even in the case of molluscs, when the cuttle-fish is struck with the trident the male stands by to help the female; but when the male is struck the female runs away.
There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities or subsist on the food. If the means of subsistence run short, creatures of like kind will fight together. Thus it is said that seals which inhabit one and the same district will fight, male with male, and female with female, until one combatant kills the other, or one is driven away by the other; and their young do even in like manner.
All creatures are at enmity with the carnivores, and the carnivores with all the rest, for they all subsist on living creatures. Soothsayers take notice of cases where animals keep apart from one another, and cases where they congregate together; calling those that live at war with one another 'dissociates', and those that dwell in peace with one another 'associates'. One may go so far as to say that if there were no lack or stint of food, then those animals that are now afraid of man or are wild by nature would be tame and familiar with him, and in like manner with one another. This is shown by the way animals are treated in Egypt, for owing to the fact that food is constantly supplied to them the very fiercest creatures live peaceably together. The fact is they are tamed by kindness, and in some places crocodiles are tame to their priestly keeper from being fed by him. And elsewhere also the same phenomenon is to be observed.
The eagle and the snake are enemies, for the eagle lives on snakes; so are the ichneumon and the venom-spider, for the ichneumon preys upon the latter. In the case of birds, there is mutual enmity between the poecilis, the crested lark, the woodpecker (? ), and the chloreus, for they devour one another's eggs; so also between the crow and the owl; for, owing to the fact that the owl is dim-sighted by day, the crow at midday preys upon the owl's eggs, and the owl at night upon the crow's, each having the whip-hand of the other, turn and turn about, night and day.
There is enmity also between the owl and the wren; for the latter also devours the owl's eggs. In the daytime all other little birds flutter round the owl-a practice which is popularly termed 'admiring him'-buffet him, and pluck out his feathers; in consequence of this habit, bird-catchers use the owl as a decoy for catching little birds of all kinds.
The so-called presbys or 'old man' is at war with the weasel and the crow, for they prey on her eggs and her brood; and so the turtle-dove with the pyrallis, for they live in the same districts and on the same food; and so with the green wood pecker and the libyus; and so with kite and the raven, for, owing to his having the advantage from stronger talons and more rapid flight the former can steal whatever the latter is holding, so that it is food also that makes enemies of these. In like manner there is war between birds that get their living from the sea, as between the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe; and so between the buzzard on one side and the toad and snake on the other, for the buzzard preys upon the eggs of the two others; and so between the turtle-dove and the chloreus; the chloreus kills the dove, and the crow kills the so-called drummer-bird.
The aegolius, and birds of prey in general, prey upon the calaris, and consequently there is war between it and them; and so is there war between the gecko-lizard and the spider, for the former preys upon the latter; and so between the woodpecker and the heron, for the former preys upon the eggs and brood of the latter. And so between the aegithus and the ass, owing to the fact that the ass, in passing a furze-bush, rubs its sore and itching parts against the prickles; by so doing, and all the more if it brays, it topples the eggs and the brood out of the nest, the young ones tumble out in fright, and the mother-bird, to avenge this wrong, flies at the beast and pecks at his sore places.
The wolf is at war with the ass, the bull, and the fox, for as being a carnivore, he attacks these other animals; and so for the same reason with the fox and the circus, for the circus, being carnivorous and furnished with crooked talons, attacks and maims the animal. And so the raven is at war with the bull and the ass, for it flies at them, and strikes them, and pecks at their eyes; and so with the eagle and the heron, for the former, having crooked talons, attacks the latter, and the latter usually succumbs to the attack; and so the merlin with the vulture; and the crex with the eleus-owl, the blackbird, and the oriole (of this latter bird, by the way, the story goes that he was originally born out of a funeral pyre): the cause of warfare is that the crex injures both them and their young. The nuthatch and the wren are at war with the eagle; the nuthatch breaks the eagle's eggs, so the eagle is at war with it on special grounds, though, as a bird of prey, it carries on a general war all round. The horse and the anthus are enemies, and the horse will drive the bird out of the field where he is grazing: the bird feeds on grass, and sees too dimly to foresee an attack; it mimics the whinnying of the horse, flies at him, and tries to frighten him away; but the horse drives the bird away, and whenever he catches it he kills it: this bird lives beside rivers or on marsh ground; it has pretty plumage, and finds its without trouble. The ass is at enmity with the lizard, for the lizard sleeps in his manger, gets into his nostril, and prevents his eating.
Of herons there are three kinds: the ash coloured, the white, and the starry heron (or bittern). Of these the first mentioned submits with reluctance to the duties of incubation, or to union of the sexes; in fact, it screams during the union, and it is said drips blood from its eyes; it lays its eggs also in an awkward manner, not unattended with pain. It is at war with certain creatures that do it injury: with the eagle for robbing it, with the fox for worrying it at night, and with the lark for stealing its eggs.
The snake is at war with the weasel and the pig; with the weasel when they are both at home, for they live on the same food; with the pig for preying on her kind. The merlin is at war with the fox; it strikes and claws it, and, as it has crooked talons, it kills the animal's young. The raven and the fox are good friends, for the raven is at enmity with the merlin; and so when the merlin assails the fox the raven comes and helps the animal. The vulture and the merlin are mutual enemies, as being both furnished with crooked talons. The vulture fights with the eagle, and so, by the way, does does swan; and the swan is often victorious: moreover, of all birds swans are most prone to the killing of one another.
In regard to wild creatures, some sets are at enmity with other sets at all times and under all circumstances; others, as in the case of man and man, at special times and under incidental circumstances. The ass and the acanthis are enemies; for the bird lives on thistles, and the ass browses on thistles when they are young and tender. The anthus, the acanthis, and the aegithus are at enmity with one another; it is said that the blood of the anthus will not intercommingle with the blood of the aegithus. The crow and the heron are friends, as also are the sedge-bird and lark, the laedus and the celeus or green woodpecker; the woodpecker lives on the banks of rivers and beside brakes, the laedus lives on rocks and bills, and is greatly attached to its nesting-place. The piphinx, the harpe, and the kite are friends; as are the fox and the snake, for both burrow underground; so also are the blackbird and the turtle-dove. The lion and the thos or civet are enemies, for both are carnivorous and live on the same food. Elephants fight fiercely with one another, and stab one another with their tusks; of two combatants the beaten one gets completely cowed, and dreads the sound of his conqueror's voice. These animals differ from one another an extraordinary extent in the way of courage. Indians employ these animals for war purposes, irrespective of sex; the females, however, are less in size and much inferior in point of spirit. An elephant by pushing with his big tusks can batter down a wall, and will butt with his forehead at a palm until he brings it down, when he stamps on it and lays it in orderly fashion on the ground. Men hunt the elephant in the following way: they mount tame elephants of approved spirit and proceed in quest of wild animals; when they come up with these they bid the tame brutes to beat the wild ones until they tire the latter completely. Hereupon the driver mounts a wild brute and guides him with the application of his metal prong; after this the creature soon becomes tame, and obeys guidance. Now when the driver is on their back they are all tractable, but after he has dismounted, some are tame and others vicious; in the case of these latter, they tie their front-legs with ropes to keep them quiet. The animal is hunted whether young or full grown.
Thus we see that in the case of the creatures above mentioned their mutual friendship or the is due to the food they feed on and the life they lead.
2
Of fishes, such as swim in shoals together are friendly to one another; such as do not so swim are enemies. Some fishes swarm during the spawning season; others after they have spawned. To state the matter comprehensively, we may say that the following are shoaling fish: the tunny, the maenis, the sea-gudgeon, the bogue, the horse-mackerel, the coracine, the synodon or dentex, the red mullet, the sphyraena, the anthias, the eleginus, the atherine, the sarginus, the gar-fish, (the squid,) the rainbow-wrasse, the pelamyd, the mackerel, the coly-mackerel. Of these some not only swim in shoals, but go in pairs inside the shoal; the rest without exception swim in pairs, and only swim in shoals at certain periods: that is, as has been said, when they are heavy with spawn or after they have spawned.
The basse and the grey mullet are bitter enemies, but they swarm together at certain times; for at times not only do fishes of the same species swarm together, but also those whose feeding-grounds are identical or adjacent, if the food-supply be abundant. The grey mullet is often found alive with its tail lopped off, and the conger with all that part of its body removed that lies to the rear of the vent; in the case of the mullet the injury is wrought by the basse, in that of the conger-eel by the muraena. There is war between the larger and the lesser fishes: for the big fishes prey on the little ones. So much on the subject of marine animals.
3
The characters of animals, as has been observed, differ in respect to timidity, to gentleness, to courage, to tameness, to intelligence, and to stupidity.
The sheep is said to be naturally dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away to lonely places with no object in view; oftentimes in stormy weather it will stray from shelter; if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion; it will stay behind and perish unless the shepherd brings up the rams; it will then follow home.
If you catch hold of a goat's beard at the extremity-the beard is of a substance resembling hair-all the companion goats will stand stock still, staring at this particular goat in a kind of dumbfounderment.
You will have a warmer bed in amongst the goats than among the sheep, because the goats will be quieter and will creep up towards you; for the goat is more impatient of cold than the sheep.
Shepherds train sheep to close in together at a clap of their hands, for if, when a thunderstorm comes on, a ewe stays behind without closing in, the storm will kill it if it be with young; consequently if a sudden clap or noise is made, they close in together within the sheepfold by reason of their training.
Even bulls, when they are roaming by themselves apart from the herd, are killed by wild animals.
Sheep and goats lie crowded together, kin by kin. When the sun turns early towards its setting, the goats are said to lie no longer face to face, but back to back.
4
Cattle at pasture keep together in their accustomed herds, and if one animal strays away the rest will follow; consequently if the herdsmen lose one particular animal, they keep close watch on all the rest.
When mares with their colts pasture together in the same field, if one dam dies the others will take up the rearing of the colt. In point of fact, the mare appears to be singularly prone by nature to maternal fondness; in proof whereof a barren mare will steal the foal from its dam, will tend it with all the solicitude of a mother, but, as it will be unprovided with mother's milk, its solicitude will prove fatal to its charge.
5
Among wild quadrupeds the hind appears to be pre-eminently intelligent; for example, in its habit of bringing forth its young on the sides of public roads, where the fear of man forbids the approach of wild animals. Again, after parturition, it first swallows the afterbirth, then goes in quest of the seseli shrub, and after eating of it returns to its young. The mother takes its young betimes to her lair, so leading it to know its place of refuge in time of danger; this lair is a precipitous rock, with only one approach, and there it is said to hold its own against all comers. The male when it gets fat, which it does in a high degree in autumn, disappears, abandoning its usual resorts, apparently under an idea that its fatness facilitates its capture. They shed their horns in places difficult of access or discovery, whence the proverbial expression of 'the place where the stag sheds his horns'; the fact being that, as having parted with their weapons, they take care not to be seen. The saying is that no man has ever seen the animal's left horn; that the creature keeps it out of sight because it possesses some medicinal property.
In their first year stags grow no horns, but only an excrescence indicating where horns will be, this excrescence being short and thick. In their second year they grow their horns for the first time, straight in shape, like pegs for hanging clothes on; and on this account they have an appropriate nickname. In the third year the antlers are bifurcate; in the fourth year they grow trifurcate; and so they go on increasing in complexity until the creature is six years old: after this they grow their horns without any specific differentiation, so that you cannot by observation of them tell the animal's age. But the patriarchs of the herd may be told chiefly by two signs; in the first place they have few teeth or none at all, and, in the second place, they have ceased to grow the pointed tips to their antlers. The forward-pointing tips of the growing horns (that is to say the brow antlers), with which the animal meets attack, are technically termed its 'defenders'; with these the patriarchs are unprovided, and their antlers merely grow straight upwards. Stags shed their horns annually, in or about the month of May; after shedding, they conceal themselves, it is said, during the daytime, and, to avoid the flies, hide in thick copses; during this time, until they have grown their horns, they feed at night-time. The horns at first grow in a kind of skin envelope, and get rough by degrees; when they reach their full size the animal basks in the sun, to mature and dry them. When they need no longer rub them against tree-trunks they quit their hiding places, from a sense of security based upon the possession of arms defensive and offensive. An Achaeine stag has been caught with a quantity of green ivy grown over its horns, it having grown apparently, as on fresh green wood, when the horns were young and tender. When a stag is stung by a venom-spider or similar insect, it gathers crabs and eats them; it is said to be a good thing for man to drink the juice, but the taste is disagreeable. The hinds after parturition at once swallow the afterbirth, and it is impossible to secure it, for the hind catches it before it falls to the ground: now this substance is supposed to have medicinal properties. When hunted the creatures are caught by singing or pipe-playing on the part of the hunters; they are so pleased with the music that they lie down on the grass. If there be two hunters, one before their eyes sings or plays the pipe, the other keeps out of sight and shoots, at a signal given by the confederate. If the animal has its ears cocked, it can hear well and you cannot escape its ken; if its ears are down, you can.
6
When bears are running away from their pursuers they push their cubs in front of them, or take them up and carry them; when they are being overtaken they climb up a tree. When emerging from their winter-den, they at once take to eating cuckoo-pint, as has been said, and chew sticks of wood as though they were cutting teeth.
Many other quadrupeds help themselves in clever ways. Wild goats in Crete are said, when wounded by arrows, to go in search of dittany, which is supposed to have the property of ejecting arrows in the body. Dogs, when they are ill, eat some kind of grass and produce vomiting. The panther, after eating panther's-bane, tries to find some human excrement, which is said to heal its pain. This panther's-bane kills lions as well. Hunters hang up human excrement in a vessel attached to the boughs of a tree, to keep the animal from straying to any distance; the animal meets its end in leaping up to the branch and trying to get at the medicine. They say that the panther has found out that wild animals are fond of the scent it emits; that, when it goes a-hunting, it hides itself; that the other animals come nearer and nearer, and that by this stratagem it can catch even animals as swift of foot as stags.
The Egyptian ichneumon, when it sees the serpent called the asp, does not attack it until it has called in other ichneumons to help; to meet the blows and bites of their enemy the assailants beplaster themselves with mud, by first soaking in the river and then rolling on the ground.
When the crocodile yawns, the trochilus flies into his mouth and cleans his teeth. The trochilus gets his food thereby, and the crocodile gets ease and comfort; it makes no attempt to injure its little friend, but, when it wants it to go, it shakes its neck in warning, lest it should accidentally bite the bird.
The tortoise, when it has partaken of a snake, eats marjoram; this action has been actually observed. A man saw a tortoise perform this operation over and over again, and every time it plucked up some marjoram go back to partake of its prey; he thereupon pulled the marjoram up by the roots, and the consequence was the tortoise died. The weasel, when it fights with a snake, first eats wild rue, the smell of which is noxious to the snake. The dragon, when it eats fruit, swallows endive-juice; it has been seen in the act. Dogs, when they suffer from worms, eat the standing corn. Storks, and all other birds, when they get a wound fighting, apply marjoram to the place injured.
Many have seen the locust, when fighting with the snake get a tight hold of the snake by the neck. The weasel has a clever way of getting the better of birds; it tears their throats open, as wolves do with sheep. Weasels fight desperately with mice-catching snakes, as they both prey on the same animal.
In regard to the instinct of hedgehogs, it has been observed in many places that, when the wind is shifting from north to south, and from south to north, they shift the outlook of their earth-holes, and those that are kept in domestication shift over from one wall to the other. The story goes that a man in Byzantium got into high repute for foretelling a change of weather, all owing to his having noticed this habit of the hedgehog.
The polecat or marten is about as large as the smaller breed of Maltese dogs. In the thickness of its fur, in its look, in the white of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it is easily tamed; from its liking for honey it is a plague to bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat. Its genital organ, as has been said, consists of bone: the organ of the male is supposed to be a cure for strangury; doctors scrape it into powder, and administer it in that form.
7
In a general way in the lives of animals many resemblances to human life may be observed. Pre-eminent intelligence will be seen more in small creatures than in large ones, as is exemplified in the case of birds by the nest building of the swallow. In the same way as men do, the bird mixes mud and chaff together; if it runs short of mud, it souses its body in water and rolls about in the dry dust with wet feathers; furthermore, just as man does, it makes a bed of straw, putting hard material below for a foundation, and adapting all to suit its own size. Both parents co-operate in the rearing of the young; each of the parents will detect, with practised eye, the young one that has had a helping, and will take care it is not helped twice over; at first the parents will rid the nest of excrement, but, when the young are grown, they will teach their young to shift their position and let their excrement fall over the side of the nest.
Pigeons exhibit other phenomena with a similar likeness to the ways of humankind. In pairing the same male and the same female keep together; and the union is only broken by the death of one of the two parties. At the time of parturition in the female the sympathetic attentions of the male are extraordinary; if the female is afraid on account of the impending parturition to enter the nest, the male will beat her and force her to come in. When the young are born, he will take and masticate pieces of suitable food, will open the beaks of the fledglings, and inject these pieces, thus preparing them betimes to take food. (When the male bird is about to expel the the young ones from the nest he cohabits with them all. ) As a general rule these birds show this conjugal fidelity, but occasionally a female will cohabit with other than her mate. These birds are combative, and quarrel with one another, and enter each other's nests, though this occurs but seldom; at a distance from their nests this quarrelsomeness is less marked, but in the close neighbourhood of their nests they will fight desperately. A peculiarity common to the tame pigeon, the ring-dove and the turtle-dove is that they do not lean the head back when they are in the act of drinking, but only when they have fully quenched their thirst. The turtle-dove and the ring-dove both have but one mate, and let no other come nigh; both sexes co-operate in the process of incubation. It is difficult to distinguish between the sexes except by an examination of their interiors. Ring-doves are long-lived; cases have been known where such birds were twenty-five years old, thirty years old, and in some cases forty. As they grow old their claws increase in size, and pigeon-fanciers cut the claws; as far as one can see, the birds suffer no other perceptible disfigurement by their increase in age. Turtle-doves and pigeons that are blinded by fanciers for use as decoys, live for eight years. Partridges live for about fifteen years. Ring-doves and turtle-doves always build their nests in the same place year after year. The male, as a general rule, is more long-lived than the female; but in the case of pigeons some assert that the male dies before the female, taking their inference from the statements of persons who keep decoy-birds in captivity. Some declare that the male sparrow lives only a year, pointing to the fact that early in spring the male sparrow has no black beard, but has one later on, as though the blackbearded birds of the last year had all died out; they also say that the females are the longer lived, on the grounds that they are caught in amongst the young birds and that their age is rendered manifest by the hardness about their beaks. Turtle-doves in summer live in cold places, (and in warm places during the winter); chaffinches affect warm habitations in summer and cold ones in winter.
8
Birds of a heavy build, such as quails, partridges, and the like, build no nests; indeed, where they are incapable of flight, it would be of no use if they could do so. After scraping a hole on a level piece of ground-and it is only in such a place that they lay their eggs-they cover it over with thorns and sticks for security against hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and hatch them; after the hatching is over, they at once lead the young out from the nest, as they are not able to fly afield for food for them. Quails and partridges, like barn-door hens, when they go to rest, gather their brood under their wings. Not to be discovered, as might be the case if they stayed long in one spot, they do not hatch the eggs where they laid them. When a man comes by chance upon a young brood, and tries to catch them, the hen-bird rolls in front of the hunter, pretending to be lame: the man every moment thinks he is on the point of catching her, and so she draws him on and on, until every one of her brood has had time to escape; hereupon she returns to the nest and calls the young back. The partridge lays not less than ten eggs, and often lays as many as sixteen. As has been observed, the bird has mischievous and deceitful habits. In the spring-time, a noisy scrimmage takes place, out of which the male-birds emerge each with a hen. Owing to the lecherous nature of the bird, and from a dislike to the hen sitting, the males, if they find any eggs, roll them over and over until they break them in pieces; to provide against this the female goes to a distance and lays the eggs, and often, under the stress of parturition, lays them in any chance spot that offers; if the male be near at hand, then to keep the eggs intact she refrains from visiting them. If she be seen by a man, then, just as with her fledged brood, she entices him off by showing herself close at his feet until she has drawn him to a distance. When the females have run away and taken to sitting, the males in a pack take to screaming and fighting; when thus engaged, they have the nickname of 'widowers'. The bird who is beaten follows his victor, and submits to be covered by him only; and the beaten bird is covered by a second one or by any other, only clandestinely without the victor's knowledge; this is so, not at all times, but at a particular season of the year, and with quails as well as with partridges. A similar proceeding takes place occasionally with barn-door cocks: for in temples, where cocks are set apart as dedicate without hens, they all as a matter of course tread any new-comer. Tame partridges tread wild birds, pecket their heads, and treat them with every possible outrage. The leader of the wild birds, with a counter-note of challenge, pushes forward to attack the decoy-bird, and after he has been netted, another advances with a similar note. This is what is done if the decoy be a male; but if it be a female that is the decoy and gives the note, and the leader of the wild birds give a counter one, the rest of the males set upon him and chase him away from the female for making advances to her instead of to them; in consequence of this the male often advances without uttering any cry, so that no other may hear him and come and give him battle; and experienced fowlers assert that sometimes the male bird, when he approaches the female, makes her keep silence, to avoid having to give battle to other males who might have heard him. The partridge has not only the note here referred to, but also a thin shrill cry and other notes. Oftentimes the hen-bird rises from off her brood when she sees the male showing attentions to the female decoy; she will give the counter note and remain still, so as to be trodden by him and divert him from the decoy. The quail and the partridge are so intent upon sexual union that they often come right in the way of the decoy-birds, and not seldom alight upon their heads. So much for the sexual proclivities of the partridge, for the way in which it is hunted, and the general nasty habits of the bird.
As has been said, quails and partridges build their nests upon the ground, and so also do some of the birds that are capable of sustained flight. Further, for instance, of such birds, the lark and the woodcock, as well as the quail, do not perch on a branch, but squat upon the ground.
9
The woodpecker does not squat on the ground, but pecks at the bark of trees to drive out from under it maggots and gnats; when they emerge, it licks them up with its tongue, which is large and flat. It can run up and down a tree in any way, even with the head downwards, like the gecko-lizard. For secure hold upon a tree, its claws are better adapted than those of the daw; it makes its way by sticking these claws into the bark. One species of woodpecker is smaller than a blackbird, and has small reddish speckles; a second species is larger than the blackbird, and a third is not much smaller than a barn-door hen. It builds a nest on trees, as has been said, on olive trees amongst others.
