History of Animals · Book IX

Aristotle · a new plain-English translation from the original language

1| And among eels too, those they call 'females' are the better ones; but they are not actually females—people call them that, though they differ only in appearance. The characters of animals are less apparent to us through perception in the case of the more obscure and shorter-lived kinds, and more apparent in the longer-lived ones. For they show a certain natural capacity with respect to each of the affections of the soul—with respect to practical wisdom and good nature, courage and cowardice, gentleness and harshness, and the other states of this kind. Some also share, to some degree, in both learning and being taught—some from one another, others from human beings as well—namely all those that have some share of hearing, and this not only with respect to sounds but also as many as can perceive differences among signs. In all the kinds that have a female and a male, nature has, in much the same way, set the character of the females apart from that of the males. This is most evident in human beings, in the animals of some size, and in the live-bearing quadrupeds; for the character of the females is softer, they are tamed more quickly, they accept the hand more readily, and they are more apt to learn—for example, the female Laconian dogs are better-natured than the males. As for the breed of dogs in Molossia, the hunting kind does not differ at all from the kind found among other peoples, but the kind that follows the flocks is distinguished by its size and by its courage against wild beasts.

2| Those bred from both stocks—from the dogs found in Molossia and from the Laconian dogs—excel in courage and in willingness to work. All females are less spirited than the males, except in the case of the bear and the leopard; in these the female is thought to be more courageous. In the other kinds the females are softer, more given to mischief, less straightforward, more impulsive, and more attentive to the rearing of their young, while the males, on the contrary, are more spirited, wilder, more straightforward, and less scheming. Traces of these characters exist in almost all animals, so to speak, but they are more evident in those that possess more character, and most of all in man; for man has his nature most fully realized, so that these states too are more evident in him. That is why woman is more compassionate than man and more given to tears, and also more envious, more prone to complain, more given to abuse, and more prone to despair; and the female is more shameless and more given to falsehood, but more easily deceived and more retentive in memory; further, the female is more wakeful, more reluctant to act, and altogether more given to inactivity than the male, and requires less food. The male, as has been said, is readier to come to help and more courageous than the female, since even among the soft-bodied sea creatures, when the cuttlefish is struck by the three-pronged spear, the male comes to the female's aid, while the female flees when the male is the one struck.

3| There is war, then, between animals wherever they occupy the same places and get their living from the same sources; for if food is scarce, animals of the same kind fight one another too, since they say that seals living around the same place fight one another, male against male and female against female, until one kills the other or is driven off by it; and all their cubs do likewise. Further, all animals are at war with the flesh-eaters, and these in turn are at war with the others, since their food comes from the other animals. This is also why diviners take note of birds sitting apart and birds sitting together, counting as 'apart' those that are hostile to one another, and as 'together' those that are at peace with one another. It is likely that, if food were abundant, the animals that now fear and turn savage toward human beings would behave tamely toward them, and toward one another in the same way. The care given to animals in Egypt makes this clear; for because food is available there and they are not at a loss for it, even the wildest animals live together with one another, since they are tamed by the benefits they receive—for example, in some places the crocodile is tame toward its priest, because of the care taken over feeding it.

4| This same thing can be seen happening in other regions too, and in parts of these regions. The eagle and the serpent are enemies, for the eagle makes snakes its food. So too the ichneumon and the venomous spider, for the ichneumon hunts these spiders. Among birds, the spotted warblers, the larks, the piper-bird, and the greenfinch are enemies, for they eat one another's eggs. So too the crow and the owl: the crow, at midday, because the owl does not see sharply by day, snatches and eats its eggs, while the owl at night eats the crow's eggs, so that the one has the advantage by day and the other by night. The owl and the wren are also enemies, for the wren too eats the owl's eggs. By day the other small birds also fly around the owl—this is called 'mobbing'—and, swooping in, pluck at it; that is why fowlers use the owl to catch small birds of every kind. The bird called the presbys is also at war with both the weasel and the crow, for they eat its eggs and its young. So too the turtledove and the pyrallis, for their feeding-ground and way of life are the same. So too the celeus and the libyus. The kite and the raven are enemies too;

5| for the kite snatches away from the raven whatever it has, since it is superior in claws and in flight, so that food makes enemies of these two as well. Further, those that live off the sea are enemies to one another, for example the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe. The buzzard is an enemy of both the toad and the snake, for the buzzard eats them. The turtledove and the greenfinch are enemies, for the greenfinch kills the turtledove, and the crow kills the bird called the typanon. The horned owl and the other hook-clawed birds eat the calaris, which is why they are at war with it. There is also war between the gecko and the spider, for the gecko eats spiders. So too between the pipo and the heron, for the pipo eats the heron's eggs and its young. There is war between the aegithus and the donkey, because the donkey, in passing, rubs its sores against the thorn-bushes; for this reason, and also if it brays, it throws the eggs and the chicks out of the nest, since they fall out in fright; and because of this harm the bird flies at the donkey and pecks at its sores. The wolf is an enemy of the donkey, the bull, and the fox, for being a flesh-eater it attacks cattle, donkeys, and the fox. The fox and the circus-hawk are enemies for the same reason;

6| For being hook-clawed and a raw-flesh-eater, it attacks and makes wounds by striking. The crow, too, is an enemy to the bull and the ass, flying at them and pecking at their eyes. The eagle and the heron are also at war: the eagle, being hook-clawed, attacks, and the heron dies defending itself. The merlin is an enemy to the vulture, and the crake to the marsh-bird, the blackbird, and the golden oriole, which some tell a story of as having come from a funeral pyre; for the crake harms these birds and their young. The nuthatch and the wren are enemies to the eagle; for the nuthatch breaks the eagle's eggs, and the eagle, both for this reason and because it is a raw-flesh-eater, is at war with all. The 'anthus' is an enemy to the horse, for the horse drives it from its pasture, since the anthus feeds on grass, and it is dim of eye and not sharp-sighted; for it mimics the horse's voice and frightens it by flying at it and drives it off, but when it catches it, it kills it. The anthus lives by rivers and marshes, has a beautiful color, and is a good survivor. The ass is an enemy to the wall-lizard, for the lizard sleeps in the ass's manger and stops it from eating by crawling into its nostrils. Of herons there are three kinds: the dusky, the white, and the one called the star-heron.

7| Of these, the dusky heron mates and lays with difficulty; for it screams and, as they say, releases blood from its eyes while mating, and it gives birth badly and painfully. It makes war on those that harm it: the eagle (for it seizes it), the fox (for it destroys it by night), and the lark (for it steals its eggs). The snake is an enemy to the weasel and to the pig — to the weasel, when both live about the same house, since they live off the same things; and the pig eats snakes. The merlin, too, is an enemy to the fox; for it strikes and plucks it, and kills its young, since it is hook-clawed. The crow and the fox are friends to one another; for the crow makes war on the merlin, and so it comes to the fox's aid when the fox is being struck. The vulture and the merlin are also enemies to each other, for both are hook-clawed. The vulture and the swan also fight the eagle; and the swan often prevails. Swans, moreover, are the most given of birds to devouring one another. Among wild animals, some are always at war with one another, others, like men, only when it happens so. The ass and the linnets are enemies; for the linnets live off thistles, and the ass, while the thistles are still tender, eats them up. And the anthus, the linnet, and the titmouse are also enemies —

8| for it is said that the blood of the titmouse and of the anthus will not mix with one another. The crow and the heron are friends, as are the reed-warbler and the lark, and the rock-dove and the green woodpecker; for the green woodpecker lives by rivers and in thickets, while the rock-dove lives among rocks and mountains, and each is fond of the place it inhabits. The bee-eater, the hawk, and the kite are friends, as are the fox and the snake (for both are burrow-dwellers), and the blackbird and the turtledove. The lion and the jackal are enemies to one another; for being raw-flesh-eaters, they live off the same things. Elephants, too, fight violently with one another, and strike each other with their tusks; and the one that is beaten becomes thoroughly enslaved and cannot bear the voice of the victor. Elephants differ from one another in courage to an astonishing degree. The Indians use war-elephants, both males and females alike; the females, however, are smaller and much less spirited. The elephant knocks down walls by charging with its great tusks; palm trees it fells with its forehead, until it lays them down, and then, treading on them with its feet, stretches them out on the ground. The hunting of elephants is carried out as follows: mounting certain tame and courageous elephants, men chase the wild ones, and when they overtake them, they order the tame ones to strike, until the wild ones are exhausted;

9| then the elephant-driver leaps upon it and controls it with a curved blade. Quickly after this it becomes tame and obedient. So long as the elephant-driver is mounted, all elephants are gentle, but when he dismounts, some are and some are not; those that turn wild have their forelegs bound with ropes, so that they stay quiet. Hunting takes place both when the elephants are already grown and when they are still foals. The friendships and wars among these animals, then, come about on account of their food and their manner of life.

10| Of fish, some flock together with one another and are friends, while those that do not flock together are enemies. Some flock together when pregnant, others when they have given birth. In general the following are schooling fish: tunny, sprats, gobies, boops, horse-mackerel, corax-fish, dentex, red mullet, barracuda, anthias, elegini, sand-smelt, sargue, garfish, squid, rainbow-wrasse, pelamyds, mackerel, chub-mackerel. Some of these are not only schooling but also pair-bonding; for the rest all pair off, but form schools only at certain seasons, as has been said, when they are pregnant, and some also when they have given birth. The bass and the grey mullet, though most hostile to one another, at certain seasons flock together with one another; for often not only fish of the same kind school together, but also those that share the same or a similar feeding-ground, if it is not in short supply. Mullets often live with their tails bitten off, and conger-eels up to the vent through which waste passes; the mullet is eaten by the bass, the conger by the moray eel. War exists between the stronger and the weaker; for the stronger devours. So much, then, for the creatures of the sea.

11| The characters of animals, as has been said before, differ in cowardice and gentleness, courage and tameness, and in intelligence and lack of intelligence. The character of sheep, as is said, is simple-minded and foolish; for it is the worst of all four-footed animals, and it wanders off into desolate places for no reason, and often, when it is winter, it goes out from shelter, and when caught by a snowstorm, if the shepherd does not stir them, they will not go back, but perish where they are left, unless the shepherds bring in the rams; then they follow. Among goats, when someone takes hold of the tip of one goat's chin-tuft (a thing like a hair), the others stand as if stupefied, staring at that one. Sheep are colder for sleeping-purposes than goats; for goats keep stiller and come closer to people, yet goats are more sensitive to cold than sheep. Shepherds teach their sheep to run together when there is a noise; for if, when thunder sounds, one is left behind and does not run with the rest, it miscarries, if it happens to be pregnant; hence, if there is a noise, they run together in the fold out of habit. Bulls, too, perish when, having strayed from the herd in disgrace, they wander off alone, killed by wild beasts. Sheep and goats lie down in a huddle by kinship; and when the sun turns toward setting, shepherds say the goats no longer lie facing one another, but turned away from each other.

12| Cattle graze in companies and by habitual association, and if one strays off, the others follow; hence herdsmen, if they fail to find one, at once search for all of them. Among horses, when one of a pair that graze together dies, the survivor raises the other's foal along with its own. And in general the horse's kind seems by nature to be affectionate. Here is a sign of it: barren mares, when their foals are taken from their mothers, often come to love them themselves, but because they have no milk, they destroy them.

13| Among the wild four-footed animals, the deer seems to be not the least intelligent, both because it gives birth beside roads (for the wild beasts do not approach on account of the presence of men), and because, once it has given birth, it eats the afterbirth first. And the deer also run to the plant seselis, and after eating it they come back to their young in this way. Further, the mother leads the young to their stations, accustoming them to the place where they must make their escapes; this is a broken-off rock with a single entrance, where in fact they say the deer will even stand its ground and defend itself. Further, when the male becomes fat (and he grows very fat when the fruit season is on), he makes himself visible nowhere but goes off to remote places, since because of his fatness he is easy to catch. They also shed their antlers in difficult and hard-to-find places; hence the proverb has arisen, "where the deer shed their antlers"; for just as if they had thrown away their weapons, they take care not to be seen. And it is said that no one has ever yet seen the left antler; for they hide it, since it is supposed to have some medicinal power. Now the yearlings do not grow antlers, except a kind of beginning, as it were, for a mark; and this is short and shaggy. In their second year they first grow their antlers straight, like stakes;

14| hence at that stage they are also called "stake-bearers." In the third year they grow a forked antler, and in the fourth a rougher one; and in this manner they continue to increase up to six years. After this they always grow similar antlers, so that one can no longer tell their age from the antlers, but people recognize the old ones especially by two signs: some have no teeth and others have few, and they no longer grow their "defenders." The parts of the growing antlers that bend forward are called "defenders," with which the animal wards off attack; the old ones do not have these, but the growth of their antlers goes straight up instead. They shed their antlers every year, and they shed them around the month Thargelion. When they have shed them, they hide themselves during the day, as has been said; they hide in thickets, being wary of flies. During this time they graze by night, until they grow their antlers out again. The antler first grows as though within a skin, and it is shaggy; but when it has grown, they sun themselves, so as to ripen and dry out the antler. And when they no longer feel it painful to rub the antlers against the trees, then they leave these places, because they are now confident, having something with which to defend themselves.

15| Before now a stag of the achaines kind has been caught with a great deal of green ivy grown on its antlers, as though the antlers, being soft, had grown into it as into green wood. When deer are bitten by a phalangion or some such creature, they gather crabs and eat them; and it is thought good for a man too to drink a preparation of this, but it is unpleasant. When female deer give birth, they immediately eat up the afterbirth, and it is not possible to get hold of it; for before they let it fall to the ground, they themselves seize it; and this is thought to be a medicine. Deer are caught in hunting by whistling and singing, and they lie down under the spell of the pleasure. When there are two hunters, one openly sings or whistles, while the other shoots from behind, when this one gives the signal for the right moment. Now if it happens that the deer's ears are pricked up, it hears sharply and cannot be caught unawares; but if it happens to have them lowered, it is caught off guard.

16| Bears, when they flee, push their cubs on ahead and, catching them up, carry them; but when they are being overtaken, they leap up into the trees. And when they come out of their den, they first eat the plant arum, as has been said before, and they gnaw wood as though they were cutting new teeth. Many of the other four-footed animals too act intelligently for their own help, since in Crete they say the wild goats, when they have been shot with an arrow, seek out dittany; for this is thought to be effective at expelling arrows lodged in the body. And dogs too, when they are in some distress, induce vomiting by eating a certain grass. The leopard, when it has eaten the poison called leopard's-bane, seeks out human dung; for this helps it. This same poison also destroys lions. Hence hunters hang the dung in a vessel from a tree, so that the animal will not go far away; for the leopard, leaping up at it again and again in hope of getting it, dies on the spot. It is also said that the leopard, having observed that wild animals delight in its scent, hides itself and hunts by that means; for they come close to it, and it catches even deer in this way. The mongoose in Egypt, when it sees the snake called the asp, does not attack it until it has called together other helpers;

17| and against blows and bites they plaster themselves with mud; for having first wetted themselves in water, they then roll in the earth. When crocodiles gape open their mouths, the plover-birds fly in and clean their teeth; they thereby get food for themselves, and the crocodile, benefiting, is aware of it and does it no harm, but when it wants to close its mouth, it moves its neck first, so as not to bite the bird along with it. The tortoise, when it has eaten a viper, eats marjoram afterward; and this has been observed. Indeed someone, having seen it do this many times, once, when it went off again to get some marjoram to go back to the viper, plucked out the marjoram; and when this happened, the tortoise died. The weasel, when it does battle with a snake, eats rue beforehand; for the smell is hostile to snakes. The dragon-serpent, when it eats fruit in season, sips up the juice of wild lettuce, and it has been seen doing this. Dogs, when they have worms, eat the standing wheat crop. Storks and other birds, when they get wounded in fighting, apply marjoram to the wound. Many have also seen the locust, when it fights with snakes, seize the snake by the neck. The weasel, too, seems to master birds by cunning;

18| for it slaughters them just as wolves do sheep. And it fights especially with the snakes that are mouse-hunters, because this creature itself hunts the same prey. Concerning the perception of hedgehogs, it has been widely observed that when north winds shift to south winds, those living in the ground change the openings of their burrows, and those kept in houses shift to a different side of the wall; so that in Byzantium, it is said, a certain man got a reputation for prediction from having observed the hedgehog doing this. The ferret is about the size of the small Maltese lap-dogs, and in its shagginess, its appearance, the white patch underneath, and the maliciousness of its character it resembles the weasel, and it becomes quite tame, though it does mischief to beehives, for it delights in honey. It is also a bird-eater, like cats. Its male member, as has been said, contains a bone, and this, from the male, is thought to be a medicine for strangury; they administer it by scraping shavings from it.

19| In general, one could observe many imitations of human life in the ways of living of the other animals, and one might see the precision of their thinking more in the lesser creatures than in the greater; for example, first among birds, the nest-building of the swallow. For in the way it mixes chaff with mud, it follows the very same procedure as men do. It weaves mud together with straws; and if it lacks mud, it wets itself and rolls its feathers in the dust. Further, it makes its bedding just as men do, laying the hard materials down first and making the whole proportionate in size to itself. Both parents work hard over feeding the young; each gives food to the young in turn, keeping track by some regular habit of which one has already received, so that no one gets fed twice. And at first the parents themselves remove the droppings, but when the young have grown, they teach the chicks to turn around and eject them outside the nest. Concerning pigeons there are other facts of this same kind to observe; for they are unwilling to mate with more than one partner, nor do they abandon the partnership first, except when one becomes widowed. Further, in labor the male's attentiveness and shared distress are remarkable; if the female becomes too weak to enter the nest on account of the difficult labor, he strikes her and forces her to go in.

20| When the chicks are hatched, he chews earth that is as salty as possible and spits it into the chicks, opening their mouth, preparing them beforehand for feeding. When he is about to lead them out of the nest, the male mounts them all. So for the most part they are attached to each other in this way, but sometimes some of those that have males also mate on the side. The creature is combative, and they trouble one another, and they slip into each other's nests, though rarely; for even if this happens less at a distance, near the nest itself they fight to the utmost. It seems peculiar to pigeons, and to ring-doves and turtle-doves, that they do not lift their heads while drinking, unless they have drunk their fill. The turtle-dove and the ring-dove keep the same male, and will not accept another; and both the male and the female sit on the eggs. It is not easy to distinguish the female from the male, except by the internal parts. Ring-doves live a long time; some have been observed at twenty years, some at thirty-five, and some even at forty years. As they grow older their claws grow long; but those who keep them cut them off. In no other way are they visibly harmed as they age.

21| Turtle-doves and pigeons that have been blinded by those who keep them as decoys also live as long as eight years. Partridges live about fifteen years. Both wood-pigeons and turtle-doves always nest in the same places. In general the males live longer than the females, but among these birds some say that the males die before the females, judging from the decoy-birds kept in households. Some also say that among sparrows the males live only one year, taking as their evidence that in spring the birds are not seen with black markings around the beak right away, but acquire them later, as though none of the earlier ones had survived. They say the females of sparrows are longer-lived than the males; for these are caught while still young, and are recognizable by having hard skin around the beak. Turtle-doves spend the summer in cold regions and the winter in warm ones, while finches spend the summer in warm regions and the winter in cold ones.

22| The heavy birds do not build nests (for this does not suit birds that are poor fliers), such as quails and partridges and the other birds of this kind; but when they have made a dust-bath on level ground (for it lays in no other kind of place), sheltering behind some thorn-bush or brushwood for protection against hawks and eagles, there they lay and sit on their eggs. Then, as soon as they have hatched, they lead the chicks out at once, because they cannot supply them with food by flying. Both quails and partridges shelter their chicks under themselves as they lead them about, just as hens do. And they do not lay and sit on the eggs in the same spot, so that no one may notice the place by their sitting there too long. When a hunter comes upon the nest, the partridge rolls about in front of the hunter as though she were easily caught, and draws him on as if he were about to catch her, until each of the chicks has made its escape; after this she flies up herself and calls them back again. The partridge lays not fewer than ten eggs, and often sixteen; as has been said, the bird is malicious and cunning. In spring they separate out from the flock in pairs by singing and fighting, each taking whatever female he wins.

23| Because they are lustful, so that the female may not sit on the eggs, the males roll the eggs about and break them, if they find them; but the female, contriving against this, runs off to lay, and often, because she is impatient to lay, drops the eggs wherever she happens to be, if the male is not present; and so that they may be kept safe all together, she does not go near them afterward. And if she is seen by a man, just as with the chicks, so too she leads him away from the eggs, appearing before the man's feet, until she has drawn him off. When she has slipped away and is sitting on the eggs, the males cry out and come together and fight; these birds are called 'widowers.' The one defeated in the fight follows the winner, and is mounted by him alone. And if one is overpowered by the second-ranked bird, or by whichever bird it may be, he too is mounted in secret by the strongest one. This does not happen always, but at a certain season of the year; and the same is true of quails. Sometimes this also happens among roosters; for in temples, where roosters are kept dedicated without hens, all the others naturally mount the newly dedicated one. And among partridges, the tame ones mount the wild partridges, and taunt them, and abuse them. The leader of the wild partridges rushes at the decoy partridge, singing back at it as though about to fight.

24| When this one has been caught in the nets, another comes forward in turn, singing back in the same way. So if the decoy doing the hunting is a male, this is what happens; but if the decoy hunting is a female and singing, and the leader sings back to her, the other males gather together and strike him and drive him away from the female, because he is going to her and not to them. So often, because of this, he approaches in silence, so that another, hearing his voice, will not come to fight him. Those experienced in this say that sometimes, when the male is approaching, the female quiets him down, so that he will not be forced to fight the other males if they hear him. The partridge does not only sing, but also gives out a squeaking sound and other cries. Often, too, the female sitting on her eggs gets up when she perceives that the male is paying attention to the decoy female that is hunting, and she sings back and waits, so that she may be mounted and draw him away from the huntress. Partridges and quails are so violently excited about mating that they fall right upon the hunters, and often perch on their heads. Such, then, are the things that happen with regard to the mating and hunting of partridges, and with regard to the rest of their cunning character. Both quails and partridges nest on the ground, as has been said, and so do some of the other flying birds.

25| Further, among such birds, the lark, the woodcock, and the quail do not perch on trees, but on the ground, while the woodpecker does not perch on the ground; it pecks at oaks for the sake of the grubs and gnats, so that they may come out. For it picks them up with its tongue once they have come out; and its tongue is broad and large. And it moves quickly on trees in every way, even upside down, like geckos. It also has claws better formed than a jackdaw's for the security of its perch on trees; for it moves by fixing these into the bark. There is one kind of woodpecker smaller than a blackbird, which has small reddish markings, and another kind larger than a blackbird. The third kind of them is not much smaller than a hen. It nests in trees, as has been said, both in other trees and in olive trees. It feeds on ants and on the grubs found in trees. In hunting for the grubs, they say, it hollows out the wood so violently that it brings the trees down. And a tamed one has already been observed to put an almond into a crack in a piece of wood, so that once fitted in it would hold still for its blows, and on the third blow it split it open and ate the soft part.

26| Many intelligent things also seem to happen with cranes; for they migrate over great distances, and fly high up so as to see far ahead, and if they see clouds and stormy weather, they fly down and stay still. Further, they have a leader, and birds calling out at the rear, so that the call can be heard throughout the flock. When they settle down, the rest sleep with their heads tucked under a wing, standing on one foot in turn, but the leader, keeping his head bare, keeps watch ahead, and when he perceives something, he signals by crying out. Pelicans that live on rivers swallow large, smooth shellfish; and when they have partly digested them in the region just before the stomach, they vomit them up, so that once the shells gape open they can pull out the flesh and eat it.

27| Among wild birds, both their dwellings are contrived with a view to their ways of life and the safety of their young. Some of them are prolific and careful of their young, others the opposite, and some are resourceful as regards their livelihood, others less resourceful. As for their dwellings, some make them around ravines and holes and rocks, for instance the bird called the charadrios. The charadrios is poor both in color and in voice; it appears by night, but hides by day. The hawk too nests on sheer cliffs; and though it eats raw flesh, of whatever birds it overpowers it does not eat the heart. This some have observed both in the case of the quail and of the thrush, and others in the case of other birds. Further, hawks also change their habits in hunting; for they do not seize prey in the same way in summer. Of the vulture it is said by some that no one has ever seen either a chick or a nest. For this reason Herodorus, father of Bryson the sophist, said that the vulture itself comes from some other land, high up and far off, citing as evidence for this both the fact that many appear suddenly, while it is clear to no one where from. The cause of this is that it lays its eggs on inaccessible rocks; and the bird is not native to many places. It lays one egg, or two at most. Some birds live in the mountains and the woods, for instance the hoopoe and the brenthos; this bird thrives well and is a songbird. The trochilus lives both in thickets and in holes; it is hard to catch and elusive, and weak in disposition, but thrives well and is skillful. It is called "elder" and "king"; for this reason they say the eagle makes war on it.

28| There are some birds that live by the sea, for instance the kinklos. In character the kinklos is cunning and hard to hunt, but once caught, it is very tame. It also happens to be crippled; for it has no control over its hindparts. All the web-footed birds live by the sea and rivers and lakes; for nature itself seeks what is suitable. Many of the split-footed birds also live around waters and marshes, for instance the anthos near rivers; it has a beautiful color and thrives well. The catarractes lives by the sea, and when it plunges itself into the deep, it stays under no less time than it would take someone to cover a plethron; the bird is smaller than a hawk. Swans too are among the web-footed birds, and they live around lakes and marshes; they thrive well, are good-natured, prolific, and live to a good old age, and if the eagle starts a fight, they defend themselves and win, though they themselves never start the fight. They are songbirds, and they sing most of all around the time of their death; for they fly out even onto the open sea, and some who were sailing along Libya have come upon many of them at sea singing with a mournful voice, and they saw some of these dying.

29| The kymindis appears rarely (for it lives in the mountains); it is black, and the size of the hawk called the "pigeon-killer," and in shape long and slender. The Ionians call it kymindis; Homer too mentions it in the Iliad, saying the gods call it chalkis, but men call it kymindis. The hybris — some say this is the same bird as the ptynx — appears by day, since it does not see sharply, but hunts by night, as eagles do. And they fight against the eagle so fiercely that both are often caught alive by shepherds. It lays two eggs, and this bird too nests in rocks and caves. Cranes too are so fiercely combative toward one another that they are even caught while fighting, for they hold their ground. The crane lays two eggs.

30| The jay changes its calls very often (for it lets out, so to speak, a different one each day), and it lays about nine eggs; it builds its nest in trees out of hair and wool. When acorns run short, it hides them away and stores them. Now concerning storks, that they are fed in return by their young, this is repeated by many people. Some say that bee-eaters do this same thing too, and are fed in return by their offspring not only when they grow old but immediately, as soon as the offspring are able; and the father and the mother stay inside. As for the appearance of the bird's feathers, those underneath are yellowish, those above are dark blue like the kingfisher's, and those at the tips of the wings are red. It lays about six or seven eggs toward late summer, in soft cliffs, and it burrows in as much as four cubits. The bird called the chloris, because its underparts are yellowish, is about the size of a lark, and lays four or five eggs; it makes its nest by pulling up comfrey by the root, and lays down hair and wool as bedding underneath. The blackbird and the jay do this same thing too, and make the inside of the nest out of these materials. The nest of the akanthyllis is also skillfully made; for it is woven like a ball of linen, with a small entrance. People from those regions also say that the "cinnamon bird" exists, and that this bird brings what is called cinnamon from somewhere and makes its nest out of it. It nests on tall trees and among the branches of the trees; but the natives, attaching lead to their arrows, shoot the nests down, and in this way gather the cinnamon from the debris.

31| The kingfisher is not much bigger than a sparrow, and its color is dark blue, green, and somewhat purple. The whole body is colored this way in a mixed fashion, both the wings and the parts around the neck, the colors not being separate each on its own. The beak is somewhat greenish, but long and slender. Such then is its appearance; its nest resembles the sea-balls and the so-called "sea-scum," except in color; the nests have a somewhat reddish color, and their shape is similar to gourds that have long necks. Their size is greater than that of the largest sponge; for some are bigger and some smaller. They are enclosed, and have a considerable amount both of solid material and of hollow space. It is not quickly cut through when struck with a sharp iron tool, but when struck and at the same time broken apart by the hands, it shatters in a lump, like the sea-scum. The opening is narrow, just enough for a small entrance, so that not even if the sea should turn it over does water get in. Its hollow parts are similar to those of sponges. It is a puzzle out of what material it builds the nest, but it seems most likely to be out of the spines of the belonē; for it lives on a diet of fish. It also goes up rivers. It lays about five eggs at most. It breeds throughout its life, and begins at four months old.

32| The hoopoe builds its nest mostly out of human dung. It changes its appearance in summer and winter, as do most of the other wild birds too. The aigithalos lays a very great number of eggs, as they say. Some say that the bird called the melankoryphos lays the most eggs after the ostrich in Libya; it has been observed with as many as seventeen, but it lays even more than twenty. It always lays an odd number, as they say. This bird too nests in trees, and feeds on grubs. A peculiarity of this bird and of the nightingale, as against the other birds, is that they do not have the pointed part of the tongue. The aigithos thrives well and is prolific, but it is lame in the foot. The chlorion is good at learning and resourceful in gaining its livelihood, but a poor flier, and has an unattractive color. The elea, like some other birds, thrives well, and in summer it perches in a place sheltered from the wind and shaded, but in winter in a sunny and sheltered spot, among the reeds around the marshes. It is small in size, but has a good voice. And the bird called the gnaphalos also has a good voice and is beautiful in color, and resourceful, and handsome in appearance. It seems to be a foreign bird; for it rarely appears in places that are not its own.

33| The corncrake is combative in character, and resourceful in intelligence as regards its livelihood, but otherwise an ill-fated bird. The bird called the nuthatch is combative in character, and quick-witted, skillful, and good at making a living, and it is said to be a sorceress, because it is so knowing; it is also prolific and raises its young well, and it lives by pecking at wood. The little owl called the aigolios is a night-forager and rarely appears by day; it too lives among rocks and caves, for it is dithallos (of doubtful sense), and in intelligence it is good at making a living and resourceful. There is a certain small bird called the treecreeper: it is bold in character, and lives around trees, and feeds on woodworms, and in intelligence is good at making a living, and it has a bright voice. The linnets have a poor livelihood and a poor color, but they do have a clear, ringing voice.

34| Of the herons, the black heron, as has been said, mates only with difficulty, but is resourceful, brings food to its mate, and is a good hunter, and it works during the day; its color, however, is poor and its belly is always wet. Of the remaining two (for there are three kinds of them), the white heron has a fine color, mates without harm, and nests and lays well up in trees, feeding in marshes, lakes, plains, and meadows. The one called the starry heron, the ocnos, is fabled to have arisen long ago from slaves, and true to its name is the most sluggish of them. Such, then, is the manner of life of the herons; but the bird called the phoyx has a peculiarity beside the rest, for it is the greatest eye-eater among the birds. It is an enemy to the harrier-hawk, for that bird too lives in a similar way. Of blackbirds there are two kinds: one is black and found everywhere, the other is whitish, equal to the first in size, and with a voice much like it; this one is found at Cyllene in Arcadia, and nowhere else. Of these, the one called the laios is like the black blackbird, though slightly smaller in size; it makes its haunts on rocks and on roof-tiles, and its beak is not red as the blackbird's is.

35| There are three kinds of thrush: one eats mistletoe, feeding on nothing but mistletoe-berries and resin, and is about the size of a jay. Another is the trichas; it has a sharp cry, and is about the size of a blackbird. Another, which some call the iliad-thrush, is the smallest of these and less variegated in color. There is a certain rock-dwelling bird whose name is the cyanos; this bird is found chiefly on Nisyros, and makes its haunts on the rocks. In size it is smaller than a blackbird but a little larger than a finch. It has large feet, and climbs up the rocks. It is entirely blue; its beak is thin and long, and its legs are short, like those of the woodpecker. The golden oriole is entirely yellow-green; it is not seen in winter, but becomes especially visible around the summer solstice, and departs when Arcturus rises. In size it is about that of a turtledove. The soft-headed bird always settles in the same spot, and is caught there. In appearance it has a large, thick-set head, and is a little smaller than a thrush; its mouth is stout, small, and round; its color is entirely ash-gray; it has good feet but poor plumage. It is caught chiefly using owls as decoys.

36| There is also the pardalos. This bird is for the most part gregarious, and is not seen singly; its color is entirely ash-gray, its size close to those just mentioned, it has good feet and is not poor in plumage, and its voice is loud and not deep. The kollyrion eats the same things as the blackbird; its size too is the same as those mentioned before; it is caught chiefly in winter. All these birds are visible throughout every season. Further, there are those accustomed to live especially about cities, the raven and the crow; for these too are always visible, and do not shift their locations nor go into hiding. There are three kinds of jackdaw: one is the korakias; this is as large as a crow, and red-billed; another is the one called the wolf-jackdaw; and further the small one, the buffoon-jackdaw. There is also another kind of jackdaw around Lydia and Phrygia, which is web-footed. There are two kinds of lark: one lives on the ground and has a crest, the other is gregarious and does not scatter as the first does, though it has a color similar to the other's, but is smaller in size; it has no crest, and is eaten.

37| The woodcock is caught in gardens with snares; it is about the size of a hen, its beak is long, its color like the francolin's; it runs fast, and is fairly tame toward humans. The starling is variegated in color, and is about the size of a blackbird. The ibises in Egypt are of two kinds, some of them white, others black. In the rest of Egypt the white ones are found, except that they do not occur at Pelusium; the black ones are not found in the rest of Egypt, but are found at Pelusium. Of scops owls, some are present at every season without fail, and are called ever-scops, and are not eaten because they are inedible; others appear occasionally in autumn, showing themselves for a day or two at most, and are edible and highly prized. They differ from the so-called ever-scops in almost nothing else, one might say, except in plumpness; and these are voiceless, while the others utter sounds. As for their origin, nothing has been observed, except that they appear with the west winds; this much is plain.

38| The cuckoo, as has been said elsewhere, builds no nest of its own, but lays in the nests of other birds, chiefly those of the ring-dove and of the hypolais and the lark on the ground, but on a tree in the nest of the bird called the chloris. It lays one egg, and does not brood it itself, but the bird in whose nest it has laid hatches it out and rears it, and, as they say, when the cuckoo's chick grows, it throws out the other's own chicks, and so they perish. Others say that the foster-mother herself kills her own chicks and gives them to the cuckoo-chick to eat, because, on account of the cuckoo-chick's fine appearance, she rejects her own. Now most of these facts are agreed upon by people who have themselves been eyewitnesses; but about the destruction of the bird's own chicks not everyone speaks the same way — some say that the cuckoo itself comes and eats up the chicks of the bird that took it in, others that because the cuckoo's chick is larger, it snatches up the food brought to the nest before the others can get it, so that the other chicks die of starvation, and others say that, being stronger, it kills them as it grows up with them. The cuckoo seems to manage its breeding shrewdly: because it is aware of its own cowardice, and that it would be unable to defend its young, for this reason it makes its own chicks, as it were, foundlings placed with others, so that they may survive. For this bird exceeds all others in cowardice: it is plucked at by the little birds, and flees from them.

39| As for the footless birds, which some call kupseloi (swifts), it has been said earlier that they resemble swallows; for it is not easy to tell one from the swallow, except that the swift has a shaggy leg. These build their nests in long clay structures molded just wide enough for entry. They make their nests in a sheltered spot, under rocks and in caves, so as to escape both wild animals and men. The bird called the aigothelas (goatsucker) is a mountain bird, in size a little bigger than a blackbird, smaller than a cuckoo. It lays two eggs, or three at most, and its character is sluggish. It sucks the milk of goats by flying up to them, and this is where it gets its name; and they say that after it has sucked the udder, the udder dries up and the goat goes blind. It is not sharp-sighted by day, but sees by night. Crows in small territories, and wherever there is not enough food for more, produce only two young; and when their own chicks are already able to fly, they first drive them out, and later chase them out of the area entirely. The crow lays as many as four or five eggs. Around the time when the guest-friends of Medius perished at Pharsalus, there was a total absence of crows in the region around Athens and the Peloponnese, as though they had some perception of what was being reported among one another.

40| Of eagles there are several kinds. One is the so-called pygargos (white-tail); this one is found on the plains and in groves and around cities; some call it the neubrophonos (fawn-killer). It flies also into the mountains and into the woodland, because of its boldness; the remaining kinds seldom visit plains and groves. Another kind of eagle is the one called the plangos, second in size and strength; it lives in ravines, glens, and by lakes, and is also called the nettophonos (duck-killer) and the morphnos; Homer mentions this one in the passage on Priam's departure. Another is black in color and smallest in size, but the strongest of these; this one lives in mountains and woodlands, and is called the melanaetos (black eagle) and the lagophonos (hare-killer). This is the only one that fully rears and leads out its young. It is swift-striking, resourceful, ungrudging, fearless, warlike, and of good omen; for it neither whines nor screeches. There is yet another kind, the perknopteros: white-headed, largest in size, with very short wings and an elongated rump, resembling a vulture; it is called the oreipelargos (mountain-stork) and the hypaetos (sub-eagle). It lives in groves, having the same faults as the others but none of their good qualities; for it is caught and chased off by crows and by the rest.

41| For it is heavy and lives miserably, feeds on carrion, and is always hungry and cries out and whines. There is another kind of eagle, the so-called sea-eagles (haliaetoi). These have a large, thick neck and curved wings, and a broad rump; they live around the sea and shores, and when seizing prey, being often unable to carry it, they are frequently dragged down into the depths. There is yet another kind of eagle, the so-called true eagles (gnesioi). They say that these alone, of all birds, are true-born; for the other kinds are mixed and have been produced by cross-breeding with one another, both among the eagles and among the hawks and the smallest birds. This one is the largest of all eagles, larger than the vulture, and half again as large as the other eagles, tawny in color. It appears rarely, like the bird called the kymindis. The season for the eagle's activity and flight is from breakfast-time until late afternoon; for from dawn it sits until the market fills up. As eagles age, their beak grows, curving ever more sharply upward, and in the end they die of starvation. A myth is also told, that this happens to it because it was once a man who wronged a guest-friend. It sets aside the food left over for its chicks;

42| for since it is not easy to procure food fresh every day, at times they have none to bring in from outside. They strike with their wings and tear with their talons if they catch anyone tampering around their nests. They make their nests not in low-lying places but in high ones, especially on sheer cliffs, though also sometimes in trees. They feed their chicks until they are able to fly; then they drive them out of the nest and chase them away from the whole area around it. For a single pair of eagles holds a large territory; hence it does not allow others to roost near them. It does not hunt in the areas close to the nest, but flies off a good distance. When it has hunted and taken something, it sets it down and does not carry it off at once, but first tests the weight before picking it up. Nor does it seize hares at once, but lets them run out into open ground first; and it does not descend to the ground at once either, but always comes down from a greater height to a lesser, little by little. It does both these things for safety, so as not to be ambushed. And it perches on high places because it rises slowly from the ground.

43| It flies high so as to see over the greatest possible area; and this is why people say it is the only bird that is divine. All the hook-taloned birds perch least of all on rocks, because the hardness of the rock is an obstacle to their curved claws. It hunts hares, fawns, foxes, and the rest, whatever it is able to master. It is long-lived; this is clear from the fact that its nest remains in use for a long time. Among the Scythians there is a kind of bird no smaller than the bustard; this lays two chicks, but does not sit on them, but hides them wrapped in the skin of a hare or fox; it keeps watch at the top of a tree when it does not happen to be hunting; and if anyone climbs up, it fights and strikes with its wings, just as eagles do.

44| Owls and night-ravens, and all the other birds that are unable to see by day, procure their food by hunting at night, though not through the whole night, but up to evening and around dawn; they hunt mice, lizards, beetles, and other small creatures of that sort. The bird called the phene (osprey/bearded vulture) is a good parent, lives well, brings food to its young, and is gentle, and rears its own chicks as well as the eagle's. For when the eagle throws its chicks out, the phene takes them up and rears them; for the eagle throws them out before their time, while they still need care and are not yet able to fly. The eagle seems to throw out its chicks out of envy; for it is by nature grudging and sharply hungry, and moreover quick to seize. It takes a large prey when it does take one. So it grudges its chicks as they grow strong, because they become good at eating, and it tears at them with its talons. The chicks also fight among themselves over their place and their food; and the parent throws them out and strikes them; and the ones thrown out cry out, and in this way the phene takes them up. The phene is bleary-eyed and impaired in its sight; but the sea-eagle is the sharpest-sighted of all, and forces its young, while still unfledged, to look at the sun, and strikes and turns about the one that is unwilling, and whichever of the two has its eyes water first, that one it kills, and rears the other. It spends its time by the sea, and lives by hunting the birds that live around the sea, as has been said. It hunts by taking them one at a time, watching for one to come up out of the sea. When the bird sees the sea-eagle looking up, it dives back down again in fear, meaning to come up somewhere else; but the eagle, because of its sharp sight, keeps flying above until it drowns it or catches it in the air. For it does not attack them in flocks; for when massed together they beat it off with their wings and spray it.

45| Petrels (kepphoi) are caught by means of foam; for they gulp it down, and so people catch them by sprinkling it about. Their flesh is fragrant throughout, except that the rump alone smells of sand. They grow fat.

46| Of the hawks the best is the triorches (buzzard), second the aisalon (merlin), third the kirkos (harrier). The asterias and the phassophonos ("dove-killer") and the pternis are different kinds again. The broader hawks are called hypotriorchai, others perkoi and spizai ("sparrow-hawks"), others leioi and phrynologoi ("toad-catchers"); these live easiest and fly low. Some say there are no fewer than ten kinds of hawks, and they differ from one another: some of them strike the dove as she sits on the ground and seize her, but do not touch her when she is flying; others hunt her when she is sitting on a tree or on something else, but do not touch her when she is on the ground or in the air; others do not touch her sitting either on the ground or on anything else, but try to catch her in flight. And they say the doves know each of these kinds, so that when one comes flying at them, if it belongs to the kind that hunts in the air, the doves stay wherever they happen to be sitting, but if the one coming at them belongs to the ground-striking kind, they do not stay put but fly up. In Thrace, in the place once called Cedar-city, men hunt the little birds in the marsh together with hawks: some of the men, holding sticks, beat the reed-bed and the brush so that the birds fly up, and the hawks, showing themselves from above, chase them down; and the birds, frightened, fly back down toward the ground again; and the men, striking with their sticks, catch them, and share the catch with the hawks — for they throw some of the birds to them, and the hawks catch them in the air. And around Lake Maeotis they say the wolves are on familiar terms with the men who fish there for a living: when the men do not share their catch, the wolves tear up their nets as they lie drying on the ground. This, then, is how matters stand with birds.

47| Among sea creatures too there is much skillful behavior to observe, suited to the way each of them lives. For what is commonly said about the fish called the fishing-frog is true, and so is what is said about the torpedo. The fishing-frog, by means of the filaments that hang down in front of its eyes — of which the length is hair-like and the tip round, as though set on the end of each for the sake of bait — whenever it stirs up sand or mud and hides itself, raises these hair-like filaments, and as the little fish strike at them it draws them in, until it brings them right to its mouth. And the torpedo, numbing whatever fish it means to overpower, by the manner in which it takes them in its mouth, feeds on these; it hides itself in sand and mud, and seizes the fish swimming over it, as many as it numbs as they come near; and some people have actually seen this happen with their own eyes. The sting-ray also hides itself, though not in the same way. A sign that they live in this manner is this: they are caught holding mullets in their mouths, though they themselves are among the slowest of fish and the mullet is the fastest. Further, the fishing-frog, once it no longer has the growths on its filaments, is caught thinner than before; and the torpedo plainly shows its power, since it even makes men go numb.

48| The fish called onos, and the skate, and the flatfish, and the angel-shark bury themselves, and once they have made themselves invisible, they then fish with the barbels in their mouths, which fishermen call "little rods"; and the small fish approach them as though approaching seaweed, on which they feed. Wherever an anthias is seen, there is no dangerous creature there — a sign the sponge-divers rely on when they dive down at that spot, and they call these fish "sacred fish"; but this seems to be mere coincidence, just as wherever there is a snail there is no boar and no partridge — for both eat snails. The sea-snake is close to the conger eel in color and in body, except that it is darker and more vigorous; if it is caught and let go, it quickly burrows into the sand, boring through with its snout; and its mouth is sharper than that of land snakes. The creature they call the sea-scolopendra, when it swallows the hook, turns its insides out, until it ejects the hook; then it turns itself right side in again. Sea-scolopendrae move toward things that smell of fat, just as the land kind do. They do not bite with the mouth, but sting over the whole body by touch, like the creatures called sea-nettles. Among fish, those called foxes, when they perceive that they have swallowed the hook, help themselves against it just as the scolopendra does —

49| for running up a long way along the fishing-line, they bite it through; for they are caught in some places on lines with many hooks, in places with currents and depths. The amiae also draw together when they catch sight of some predator, and the largest of them swim round the rest in a circle, and if it touches any one of them, they fight it off; they have strong teeth, and there has even been seen a lamia that had fallen upon them and come away torn open. Among river fish, the male sheatfish takes great care over its young: for the female, once she has spawned, goes off, but the male stays wherever the greatest mass of spawn has gathered, guarding the eggs, and gives no other help except keeping off the other little fish so they do not tear the brood apart; and he does this for forty days and even fifty, until the brood has grown enough to be able to get away from the other fish. He is recognized by fishermen wherever he happens to be guarding eggs, for in driving off the little fish he darts about and makes a noise, a sort of grunting. And he stays by the eggs so devotedly that the fishermen, whenever the eggs are attached to roots in deep water, haul them up as far as they can into the shallows; and he likewise does not abandon the brood, but if it so happens, he is quickly caught on the hook because he snatches at the little fish that come near, while if he is experienced and wise to hooks, he still does not leave the brood even so, but bites through the hooks with his very hard tooth and destroys them.

50| All creatures, both the free-swimming and the stationary, feed in those places where they were born, and in places like them; for the food proper to each is found there. Those that wander most are the flesh-eaters; and nearly all fish are flesh-eaters except a few, such as the mullet, the saupe, the red mullet, and the chalkis. In the fish called the pholis, the mucus it releases plasters itself around the fish and becomes like a little chamber. Among the shelled and footless creatures, the scallop moves the most and travels furthest under its own power by swimming; the purple-shell advances only a very little, and creatures like it do the same. From the strait at Pyrrha the fish swim out in winter, except for the goby, because of the cold (for the strait is colder), and with the coming of spring they swim back in again. Neither the parrotfish nor the shad nor any of the spinier fish is found in the strait, nor dogfish, nor spiny dogfish, nor crayfish, nor octopuses, nor musk-octopuses, nor certain others; and among the fish that grow up in the strait, the white goby is not a fish of the open sea. Among fish, the egg-bearing kinds are at their peak in spring, until they have spawned, while the live-bearing kinds are at their peak in autumn, and along with these the mullets and red mullets and all others of that sort.

51| Around Lesbos, all the open-sea fish and the strait-dwelling fish spawn in the strait: for they mate in autumn, but spawn in spring. The cartilaginous fish, too, in autumn mate with the males mixed indiscriminately among the females, but in spring they swim in separated by sex, until they have spawned; and during mating many are caught joined together in pairs. Among the soft-bodied creatures the most cunning is the cuttlefish, and it alone uses its ink for the sake of concealment, and not only out of fear; the octopus and the squid release their ink only out of fear. None of these ever releases all its ink at once, and whenever it releases some, the supply grows back again. The cuttlefish, as has been said, often uses its ink for the sake of concealment, and after showing itself in front, turns back into the ink-cloud; further, it hunts with its long arms stretched out, catching not only small fish but often mullets as well. The octopus is stupid — for it will even walk right up to a hand let down toward it by a person — but it is a good household manager: it gathers everything into the den where it happens to live, and once it has used up what is most useful, it throws out the shells and the husks of crabs and shellfish, and the spines of little fish —

52| And it hunts fish by changing its color and making itself like whatever rocks it is near. It does this same thing also when frightened. Some say that the cuttlefish does this too, for they say its color becomes similar to that of the place where it spends its time. Among fish, only the angel-fish does this: it changes its color just as the octopus does. Now most kinds of octopus do not live two years, for by nature the octopus is prone to wasting away; and here is a sign of it: when squeezed it always lets something go, and in the end it disappears altogether. The females suffer this more after giving birth, and become sluggish, and do not even notice when tossed about by the waves, so that it is easy for someone who dives down to take hold of them by hand; they become slimy, and no longer hunt even while lying in wait. The males become leathery and tough. It seems to be a sign that they do not live two years, that after the birth of the little octopuses, in summer and toward autumn, it is no longer easy to see a large octopus, though shortly before this time the octopuses are at their largest. They say that once they have hatched their eggs, both parents grow so old and weak that they are eaten by little fish and can easily be dragged out of their lairs;

53| whereas before this they suffer nothing of the kind. They also say that the small, young octopuses suffer nothing like this after birth, but are stronger than the larger ones. Cuttlefish likewise do not live two years. Of the soft-bodied creatures, only the octopus comes out onto dry land; it moves over rough ground, and avoids smooth ground. In other respects the animal is strong, but its neck is weak when squeezed. This, then, is how matters stand concerning the soft-bodied creatures. As for shellfish, they say that the thin, rough ones make around themselves a kind of hard breastplate, and that this grows larger as they themselves grow larger, and that they go out of it as if out of a lair or a house. The nautilus too is an octopus, remarkable both in its nature and in what it does: it swims on the sea, rising up from the depths below, and it rises with its shell turned upside down, so that it may come up more easily and sail while still empty of water, but once it has surfaced it turns the shell back over. Between its tentacles it has a webbed membrane, like the webbing between the toes of web-footed birds, except that in their case it is thick, while in this creature it is thin and cobweb-like.

54| It uses this membrane as a sail whenever there is some wind, and lets down its tentacles alongside in place of rudders; and if it takes fright, it dives down, filling its shell with sea-water. Concerning the origin of the shell and how it grows along with the animal, this has not yet been observed with precision, but it seems not to come about from mating, but to grow naturally, as with the other shellfish. Nor is it yet clear whether the creature can live after shedding its shell. Among insects, the hardest-working — indeed comparable to almost all other animals as well — are the kind of ants and the kind of bees, and further hornets and wasps and, one might say, all creatures akin to these. Among spiders too there are those most skillful, most refined, and most resourceful in their way of life. Now the industry of ants is plain for anyone to see: how they always all travel along a single path, and how they store away and manage their food; for they work even on nights of the full moon.

55| Of spiders and venomous spiders there are many kinds. Of the biting kind there are two: one is like the so-called wolf-spiders, small, mottled, quick, and given to jumping — it is called the flea-spider; the other is larger, black in color, with long front legs, sluggish in movement, walking quietly, not vigorous, and not given to jumping. All the other kinds that drug-sellers display produce a bite that in some cases has no effect at all, in others only a mild one. There is also another kind of the so-called wolf-spiders. The small one does not weave a web, but the larger one weaves one that is rough and shoddy, close to the ground and against stone walls; it always makes its web at the mouth of its lair, and keeping the starting-threads inside, it watches until something falls in and stirs; then it comes forward. The mottled kind makes a small, shoddy web beneath trees. There is a third kind besides these, the cleverest and most skillful: it weaves first by stretching threads out on every side to the outer boundary, then lays down threads from the center — and it fixes the center accurately — and onto these it throws in threads like the weft of a loom, and so weaves the whole together.

56| It makes its resting-place and its store of prey elsewhere, but keeps watch for prey at the center of the web. Then, whenever something falls in and the center is set moving, it first binds the creature round and wraps it in its threads, until it has rendered it helpless, and after this it lifts it up and carries it off; and if it happens to be hungry, it sucks out the juice — for this is its enjoyment — but if not, it sets out again after prey, first repairing what has been torn. And if something else falls in meanwhile, it first goes to the center, and from there sets out again toward the new catch, as if starting over from the beginning. If someone damages the web, it begins weaving again as the sun is going down or coming up, since it is at these hours above all that creatures fall in. It is the female that works and hunts; the male shares in the enjoyment. Among the skillful spiders that weave a dense web there are two kinds, one larger, one smaller. The longer-legged one keeps watch hanging below the web, so that creatures, not taking fright, will not be wary but will fall in from above — for on account of its size it cannot easily hide — while the more moderate-sized one shades itself from above by means of a small opening in the web. Spiders are able to send out their thread as soon as they are born, not from within as a kind of residue, as Democritus says, but from the body, like a kind of bark, or like creatures that shoot out their quills, such as porcupines.

57| It is applied and wound around even larger animals: it will cast itself onto a small lizard, run around its mouth, and let out its thread, until it has bound the mouth shut; only then does it come up and bite. This, then, is how matters stand concerning these animals. There is a kind of insect that has no single name, but all of whose members share a kindred form: these are all the comb-making creatures, such as bees and those like them in form. Of these there are nine kinds, of which six are gregarious: the bee, the kings of the bees, the drone that lives among the bees, the annual wasp, and further the hornet and the tenthredon; three are solitary: the small seiren, gray in color; another, the larger seiren, black and mottled; and a third, the so-called bombylios, the largest of these. Now ants hunt nothing at all, but gather up things already made; spiders make nothing and store nothing away, but only hunt their food; of the nine kinds just named, the rest will be discussed later. Bees hunt nothing at all; they make their own food and store it away, for honey is their food. They make this clear whenever beekeepers attempt to remove the combs: for when they are being smoked and suffering badly from the smoke, it is then above all that they eat the honey, whereas at other times they are not much seen doing this, since they are sparing with it and store it away for future food. They have also another kind of food, which some call kerinthos;

58| This is inferior stuff, with a fig-like sweetness, and they carry it on their legs just as they do wax. There is great variety in their work and in their way of life. For when a clean hive has been given over to them, they build the combs, bringing the tears from the other flowers and also from trees—willow and elm and the other most gluey trees. With this they also smear the floor, to keep out other creatures; the bee-keepers call this substance "propolis-dust." They also build up around the entrances, if these are wide. They mold combs first, the ones in which they themselves are produced, then the ones in which the so-called kings and the drone-cells are produced. Their own cells they always mold; those of the kings they mold when there is abundant breeding, and the drone-cells when a plentiful supply of honey shows itself. They mold the kings' cells next to their own (these are small), and the drone-cells next to these; these are smaller in size than the cells of the ordinary bees. They begin their combs from above, from the roof of the hive, and work down, making many combs woven together as far as the floor. The openings, both of the honey-cells and of the brood-cells, are double-mouthed;

59| for around a single base there are two openings, like those of a two-handled cup, one facing inward, the other outward. The joins at the beginnings of the combs, where they attach to the hive, run around in a circle for about two or three rows, and are shallow and empty of honey; the combs are fullest where they are most thickly plastered with wax. Around the mouth of the hive, the first part one enters through is smeared all over with a substance called "mitys"; this is quite black, a kind of purging left over from their wax, and its smell is sharp; it is a remedy for bruises and suppurations of that kind. The coating continuous with this is pitch-wax, which is blunter and less medicinal than mitys. Some say that the drones mold combs by themselves, both in the same hive and, sharing a single comb, apportioned alongside the bees, but that they do none of the work of bee-craft, and that both they and their young are fed on what belongs to the bees. The drones spend most of their time indoors, but if they fly out, they dart straight upward toward the sky, wheeling themselves around as though exercising; and when they have done this, they go back in again and feast. The kings do not fly out except with the whole swarm, neither to pasture nor otherwise.

60| They say too that if the swarm goes astray, the bees track and pursue it until they find their leader by scent. It is also said that he is carried along by the swarm when he is unable to fly, and that if he is lost, the departed swarm perishes; and that if the bees do hold out for some time and make combs, no honey forms in them, and they themselves quickly perish. Bees take up the wax by darting quickly at the buds with their front feet; they wipe these off onto their middle feet, and the middle feet onto the curved parts of their hind feet; and when loaded in this way they fly off, and are visibly weighed down. On each flight a bee does not go from one kind of flower to a different kind—for example, from violet to violet—and it touches nothing else until it flies back into the hive. When they arrive at the hive, they shake themselves off, and three or four bees attend on each one. What is taken from them is not easy to see; nor has the manner in which they do their work been observed; but the taking up of the wax has been observed on olive trees, because of the density of their leaves, on which the bees stay in the same spot for a longer time. After this they build their brood-cells. There is nothing to prevent brood, honey, and drones from being in the same comb.

61| If the leader is alive, they say, the drones are produced separately, but if not, they are bred by the bees in the bees' own cells, and these become more spirited; that is why they are also called "stingers"—not because they have a sting, but because they want to strike and cannot. The drones' cells are larger. Sometimes the bees mold the drones' combs by themselves, on their own, but for the most part within the bees' own combs; that is why they cut them out. There are several kinds of bees, as has been said before: two kinds of leaders, the better one reddish, the other black and more mottled, twice the size of the good bee; the best worker-bee is small, round, and mottled; another is long, like the hornet. There is another called the "thief," black, flat-bellied. And further, the drone: this is the largest of all, stingless and sluggish. The bees produced differ according to whether they feed on cultivated land or on hill country; those from the wooded pastures are hairier, smaller, more industrious, and fiercer. The good bees, then, make combs that are even, with the whole covering on the surface smooth, and further, a single kind of comb throughout—the whole of it, for example, either honey, or brood, or drones;

62| but if it happens that they make all of these in the same comb, there will be one kind of work done in succession, as by a pump. The long bees make combs that are uneven, with the covering swollen up, like that of the hornet's comb; and further, the brood and the rest are not arranged in order but as they happen to fall out; from these are produced the bad leaders and many drones and the so-called thieves, and honey either very little or none at all. The bees sit on the combs and ripen them together; if they do not do this, they say, the combs decay and become cobwebbed. And if they are able to keep control of the rest by sitting on it, this becomes like a kind of scrap eaten away, but if not, the whole is lost. Little grubs form in the decaying parts, which grow wings and fly off. The bees also right the combs that fall, and set supports underneath, so that they can get beneath them; for when they have no path by which to approach, they do not settle on them, and then they become cobwebbed. When the thief and the drone are produced, they do no work, and they harm the work of the others. When caught they are killed by the good bees. These kill off very many of the leaders too, and especially the bad ones, so that being numerous they do not tear the swarm apart.

63| They kill them especially when the hive is not producing much brood and swarms are not about to be sent off; for at these times they also destroy the cells of the kings, if these have been prepared, on the ground that they would lead swarms away. They also destroy the drones' cells if a shortage of honey begins to show itself and the hives are not producing honey well; and it is then that they fight hardest with those who take away the honey, and drive out the drones already present, and are often seen sitting apart outside at the entrance. The small kind fights hard against the long kind, and tries to drive it out of the hives; and if they prevail, this is thought to make for an extraordinarily good hive. But if the other kind gets the hive to itself, they are idle and do nothing good at all, and they too perish before autumn. As for those the good bees kill, they try to do this outside the hive; but if one dies inside, they carry it out all the same. The so-called thieves do harm even to the combs of their own hive, but they also enter, if unnoticed, into those of others; and if caught, they are killed. It is hard work to go unnoticed: for at each entrance there are guards, and even if the thief himself gets in unnoticed, because he has gorged himself he cannot fly, but rolls about in front of the hive, so that it is hard work for him to escape.

64| The kings themselves are never seen outside except at a swarming. And in a swarming the other bees appear coiled together around him. When a swarming is about to occur, a distinctive solitary sound arises for some days beforehand, and two or three days before it a few bees fly around the hive; and if the king is among these, it has not been observed to be easy to tell. When they have gathered, they fly off, and the other bees separate off, each group with its own king; and if it happens that a few bees are settled near a great many, the few move over to join the many, and if the king they left behind follows along with them, they kill him. This, then, is the manner in which the leaving and the swarming occur. The bees are assigned, each to one of the various tasks: some gather flowers, others carry water, others smooth and set right the honeycombs. A bee carries water when it is rearing young. No bee settles on flesh, nor does it eat cooked food. There is no fixed season from which they begin to work; but if they have the necessary supplies and are faring well, they set to work rather according to the time of year, and whenever the weather is fair they work continuously.

65| And a young bee, as soon as it has emerged from the cell, works on the third day, if it has food. And when a swarm is about to settle, some bees turn aside to feed and then come back again. In hives that are flourishing, the brood of bees fails only for about forty days, those after the winter solstice. When the young are grown, the bees set food beside them and smear it on; and when a young bee is strong enough, it splits open the covering itself and comes out. As for the creatures that arise in the hives and damage the honeycombs, the good bees clean them out, while the other, worthless bees, out of laziness, let the works be destroyed. When the beekeepers remove the honeycombs, they leave the bees food for the winter; and if this is sufficient, the hive is preserved, but if not, then if it is winter they die on the spot, while if the weather is fair they abandon the hive. As food they use honey both summer and winter; they also lay in another food resembling wax in hardness, which some call sandarach. Their worst enemies are wasps and the birds called titmice, and also the swallow and the bee-eater. The frogs of the marshes also hunt them as they come to the water;

66| and for this reason the beekeepers hunt these frogs out of the marshes from which the bees draw their water, and they also destroy the wasps' nests and the swallows' nests near the hives, and the nests of the bee-eaters. Bees flee from no creature except themselves. Their fighting is both against each other and against the wasps; and outside the hive they do no wrong either to each other or to any other creature, but near the hive they kill whatever they get the better of. Bees that sting die because they cannot draw out the sting without the intestine along with it; for often a bee is saved if the person stung takes care to press out the sting, but a bee that has lost its sting dies. They kill even large animals by stinging them, and a horse has before now died from bees. The leaders are least prone to anger and to stinging. Bees that die are carried outside. The creature is also in other respects extremely clean; and this is why they often void their waste while flying, because it has a bad smell. They are troubled, as has been said, by foul smells and by the smell of perfumes; that is why they sting people who use them. They perish from various other mishaps, and also whenever the leaders become numerous and each of them leads off a portion of the hive.

67| The toad also destroys bees; for it comes to the entrances and puffs itself up, and watching for them as they fly out, devours them; it can suffer no harm from the bees, but the person who tends the hives kills it. As for the type of bee said to make poor and rough honeycombs, some beekeepers say that it is above all the young bees that do this, through lack of skill; the young bees are those of the current year. Nor do the young sting in the same way; that is why swarms are easy to carry off, since they consist of young bees. When the honey runs low, they drive out the drones, and set figs and sweet things before the bees. Among the bees, the older ones work inside, and are shaggy from staying inside, while the young ones bring in supplies from outside and are smoother. They also kill the drones, whenever there is no longer room for them while the bees are at work; the drones are in the innermost part of the hive. Once, when a certain hive fell sick, some bees came to attack another hive, and fighting and winning, carried off the honey; but when the beekeeper killed them, the other bees then sallied out and defended themselves, without stinging the man. Diseases fall chiefly upon hives that are flourishing, including the one called kleros;

68| this arises as small grubs in the floor of the hive, and as these grow, something like cobwebs takes hold of the whole hive, and the honeycombs rot. Another disease is a kind of sluggishness that comes over the bees, along with foulness of smell in the hives. The pasture of bees is thyme; the white kind is better than the red. The location should not be warm during the stifling heat, but should be warm in winter. They fall sick most of all when they work on mildewed material. When there is a strong wind, they carry a stone on themselves as ballast against the gusts. If a river is nearby, they drink from nowhere else but there, first setting down their load; but if there is none, they drink elsewhere and then bring up the honey, and go straight off to work. There are two seasons for the production of honey, spring and autumn; the spring honey is sweeter and whiter and altogether finer than the autumn honey. Honey is finer when it comes from new wax and from a young comb; the reddish honey is inferior because of the comb, for it spoils like wine does from its container; that is why it must be dried out. When the thyme is in bloom and the comb becomes full, this honey does not set.

69| The gold-colored honey is fine; the white kind does not come from pure thyme, but is good for the eyes and for sores. Of the honey, the weak part always rises to the top and must be removed, while the pure part is below. When the vegetation is in bloom, the bees produce wax; that is why the wax must then be removed from the hive, for they set to work on it at once. The plants from which they gather are the following: safflower thistle, melilot, asphodel, myrtle, reed-grass, chaste-tree, and broom. When they work on thyme, they mix in water before leaving the comb. All bees void their waste either while flying, as has been said, or into a single comb. The small bees are better workers than the large ones, as has been said, and their wings are worn away and their color is black, as though scorched; the bright, shining ones are idle, like idle women. Bees also seem to delight in clattering noises, which is why people say that by clattering with potsherds and pebbles they gather them into the hive; it is, however, entirely unclear whether they hear at all, and whether they do this out of pleasure or out of fear. Bees also drive out the idle ones and those that do not spare themselves. The tasks are divided, as has been said before, and some bees work on the honeycombs, some on the honey, and some on bee-bread;

70| Some of the bees mold the combs, others carry water to the cells and mix it with the honey, and others go out to work. In the early morning they are silent until one bee wakes them by buzzing twice or three times; then they fly out to work all together, and when they come back they make a din just as at first, but little by little less, until one bee, flying around, buzzes as if signaling them to sleep; then suddenly they fall silent. A hive is recognized to be strong by the fact that the noise is great and there is much movement of bees going out and coming in, for it is then that they are producing brood-cells. They are hungriest just when they are beginning to come out of the winter. They become lazier if a beekeeper, in taking the honey, leaves behind too much of it; but one should leave the combs in proportion to the size of the swarm, for they work with less spirit if too little is left them. They also become lazier if the hive is large, for then they labor with less spirit. A hive is stripped of a full jar of honey or three half-jars, and thriving hives of two jars or five half-jars; three jars is rare. The sheep is an enemy to bees, and so are wasps, as has also been said before; and beekeepers hunt down these wasps by setting out a dish with meat thrown into it, and when many have fallen in, they put a lid on it and set it over the fire.

71| A few drones present in the hive benefit it, for they make the bees more industrious. Bees also foreknow both storm and rain; the sign of this is that they do not fly out but curl up within the hive even in fine weather, by which beekeepers know that they are expecting a storm. When they hang from one another within the hive, this is a sign that the hive will be abandoned. But beekeepers blow sweet wine into the hive when they perceive this happening. It is useful to plant around the hives wild pears, beans, Median grass, Syrian grass, vetches, myrtle, poppy, thyme, and almond. Some beekeepers recognize their own bees in the pasture by sprinkling flour on them. If the spring comes late, or there is drought, or there is blight, the bees produce less brood. This, then, is how matters stand with bees,

72| and of wasps there are two kinds. Of these, the wild ones are rare, and occur in the mountains, and they do not breed in the ground but in oak trees; in shape they are larger and more elongated and darker-skinned than the others, and all of them are mottled and stinged and more vigorous, and their sting is more painful than that of the others, for their stinger too is proportionately larger. These live two years, and are seen flying out of oaks even in winter when the wood is being cut, and they live through the winter in hiding, spending their time in the wood. Among them, as among the tamer kind, some are mothers and some are workers; but what the nature of the worker and the mother is will become clear from the tamer kind. For among the tame wasps too there are two kinds, the leaders, whom they call mothers, and the workers. The leaders are much larger and gentler. The workers do not live two years but all die when winter falls (this is evident, for as winter begins their workers grow sluggish, and around the solstice they are not seen at all), while the leaders called mothers are seen throughout the whole winter and lie hidden underground;

73| for people plowing and digging in winter have often seen mothers, but no one has ever seen a worker. The generation of wasps is as follows. When the leaders, as summer comes on, take up a well-placed spot, they mold combs and put together what are called small wasp-nests, with about four openings or thereabouts, in which wasps are produced but not mothers. When these have grown, other larger nests are put together after them, and again when these have grown, still others, so that toward the end of autumn the wasp-nests become most numerous and largest, and in these the leader, the so-called mother, no longer produces wasps but mothers. These are produced above, on the surface of the nest, as larger grubs in four continuous cells or a few more, in a manner similar to that of the leaders in the combs. When the worker wasps have been produced in the combs, the leaders no longer work, but the workers bring them their food; this is evident from the fact that the leaders no longer fly out along with the workers but stay inside and remain quiet. Whether the previous year's leaders, when they have produced new leaders, are killed by the young wasps, and whether this regularly happens, or whether they can also live for a longer time, has not yet been observed;

74| nor has anyone yet observed old age either in mothers or in wild wasps, nor any other such affliction. The mother is flat and heavy, and thicker and larger than the wasp, and because of her weight not very strong for flight; nor can they fly far; hence they always sit in the nests, molding and managing what is within. In most wasp-nests the so-called mothers are present. It is disputed whether they have stings or not; they seem, like the leaders of bees, to have them but not to put them out or to sting. Of wasps, some are without stings, like drones, and others have a sting. The stingless ones are smaller and feebler, and do not defend themselves, while those with stings are larger and vigorous; and some call these males, and the stingless ones females. Toward winter many of those with stings seem to shed them; but we have not yet met an eyewitness of this. Wasps occur more in droughts and in rough country, and they occur underground, and they mold their combs out of debris and earth, each starting from a single point as if from a root.

75| For food they use both certain flowers and fruits, but for the most part they feed on flesh. Some of the others too have already been observed mating; but whether both are stingless, or both have stings, or one has and the other not, has not yet been observed. Among the wild ones too mating has been observed, and one of the pair has a sting; about the other it has not been observed. The brood does not seem to arise from this mating, but to be already larger than could be the offspring of a wasp. If one takes hold of a wasp by the feet and lets it buzz with its wings, the stingless ones fly toward it, but those with stings do not fly toward it; some use this as evidence that the former are males and the latter females. In winter they are caught in caves, some having stings and some not. Some make small and few nests, others many and large ones. The so-called mothers are caught when the season turns, most of them around elm trees, for they collect the sticky, gum-like matter there. A great abundance of mothers has occurred in a given place when there had been many wasps and much rain the previous year. They are hunted around cliffs and in the fissures of the earth that run straight up, and all of them appear to have stings.

76| This, then, is how matters stand with wasps, and hornets do not live by gathering from flowers as bees do, but for the most part by eating flesh (hence they also spend their time around dung, for they hunt large flies, and when they catch one, they remove its head and fly off carrying the rest of the body), but they also touch sweet fruit. They use the food mentioned, then, and they have leaders as bees and wasps do; and these leaders are larger in size relative to hornets, proportionately, than the wasps' leader is to wasps or the bees' leader is to bees. This leader too stays inside, like the leader of the wasps. Hornets make their hive underground, carrying out the earth as ants do; for no swarming-off occurs, as it does among bees, either for these or for wasps, but ever-younger ones being added remain there and make the hive larger by carrying out the soil. The hives grow large; for already, when a hive is thriving, three or four baskets of comb have been taken out of it. Nor do they store up food as bees do, but they lie hidden through the winter, and most of them die; but whether all of them do is not yet clear.

77| In a nest of hornets there is never more than one leader, as there is among bees, and hornets tear apart the nests of bees. When some of the hornets wander off from the nest, they gather together at some piece of wood and build combs, the sort that are often seen lying on the surface, and in this comb they produce a single leader. When he emerges and grows up, he takes charge and leads the others off and settles them with himself into a nest. As for the mating of hornets, nothing has yet been observed, nor where their offspring comes from. Now among bees the drones and the kings are stingless, and among wasps too some are stingless, as has been said before; but all hornets are seen to have a sting. The leader, though, needs further examination, to see whether he has a sting or not. The bombylii lay their eggs under a rock, on the ground itself, with two openings or a few more; and in these one finds the beginning of a coarse sort of honey. The tenthredon closely resembles the hornet, but is mottled, and in breadth is like the bee; being greedy, it flies alone toward kitchens and fish and enjoyments of that sort; it lays its eggs in the ground like wasps, and is very prolific, and its comb is much bigger than that of wasps and more elongated. This, then, is the manner in which the work and way of life of bees and wasps and other such creatures stands.

78| As for the characters of animals, as has been said before too, one can observe differences chiefly with respect to courage and cowardice, and then also with respect to gentleness and wildness, and among the wild animals themselves. For the lion is fiercest when eating, but when not hungry and having already eaten, is gentlest of all. His character is not suspicious of anything nor wary of anything, and toward those raised and familiar with him he is very fond of play and affectionate. When seen while being hunted he never flees or cowers, but if he is compelled by the number of hunters to give ground, he withdraws step by step, walking, turning around little by little; if, however, he reaches thick cover, he flees quickly, until he comes into the open again, and then again he withdraws walking. In open country, if he is ever forced by the number of hunters to flee into the open, he runs at a stretched-out pace and does not leap. His running gait is continuous like a dog's, stretched out; but when pursuing, he hurls himself forward once he is near. What is said of him is true too — that he fears fire most of all, as Homer also composed: 'the blazing torches, though eager, he shrank from them'; and that he watches for the one who struck him and rushes at that man;

79| but if someone does not strike him but only troubles him, if he rushes on him and seizes him, he does him no wrong and does not injure him with his claws, but shakes him and frightens him and then lets him go again. Lions come especially toward cities and do wrong to people when they grow old, because through old age they are unable to hunt and because their teeth have grown worn. They live many years, and a lame lion that was caught had many of its teeth broken, which some used as evidence that lions live many years; for this could not have happened to one that was not long-lived. There are two kinds of lions: of these, the rounder and more curly-haired kind is more cowardly, while the longer kind with straight hair is braver. They sometimes flee with the tail stretched out, like dogs. A lion has even been observed about to attack a boar, and when he saw it bristle back at him, fleeing. Against blows he is weak in the hollow parts of the body, but on the rest of the body he takes many blows and has a strong head. Whatever he bites or tears open with his claws, from those wounds there flow very yellow discharges, which cannot be washed away by anything, not by bandages or sponges; the treatment for them is the same as for wounds bitten by dogs.

80| Jackals too are friendly to man, and they neither wrong people nor fear them greatly, but they make war on dogs and on lions; for this reason they are not found in the same place as those. The small jackals are the best. Some say there are two kinds of them, others three; but there do not seem to be more, but rather, just as with some fish and birds and four-footed animals, jackals too change according to the seasons, and have one color in winter and another in summer, and in summer they become smooth-coated, in winter shaggy.

81| The bonasus occurs in Paeonia on Mount Messapion, which marks the boundary between the Paeonian and Maedian territory; the Paeonians call it the monapos. In size it is as large as a bull, and it is bulkier than an ox, for it is not elongated in shape. Its hide, stretched out, covers seven dining couches. In its other features it resembles an ox, except that it has a mane reaching down to its shoulder-blades, like a horse; but its hair is softer than a horse's, and lies flatter. The color of its coat is tawny; the mane is deep, reaching down as far as the eyes, and thick. Its color is something between ash-gray and fiery red, not like the horses called dun, but its hair is coarser, and woolly underneath; they are never wholly black or wholly fiery red. Their voice is like that of an ox, and their horns are curved, bent toward each other and useless for self-defense, about a span in size or a little more, and thick enough that each could hold not much less than half a pint; the black color of the horn is handsome and glossy. The forelock reaches down over the eyes, so that the animal looks sideways rather than straight ahead.

82| It has no upper teeth, just as no ox does nor any other horned animal, and its legs are shaggy; and it is cloven-hoofed; its tail is smaller than its size would suggest, similar to that of an ox. It throws up dust and paws the ground like a bull. Its hide is strong against blows. Its meat is sweet, which is why it is hunted. When struck, it flees, and stands its ground only when its strength gives out. It defends itself by kicking and by voiding dung behind it, hurling it as far as four fathoms from itself; it does this readily and often, and the dung burns so that it singes the hair off dogs. This is what its dung does when the animal is disturbed and frightened, but when it is undisturbed it does not burn. Such, then, is the appearance and nature of this beast; and when the season for giving birth comes, they give birth all together in the mountains. Around the spot, before giving birth, they first void dung, and make a kind of enclosure; for the animal discharges a great quantity of this excrement.

83| Of all wild animals the elephant is the most tame and gentle; for it can be trained in many things and understands a great deal, since elephants are even taught to do obeisance to the king. It is also highly perceptive and surpasses other animals in intelligence generally. Once a male has mated with a female and made her pregnant, he does not touch her again. Some say the elephant lives two hundred years, others a hundred and twenty, and that the female lives about as long as the male; that it reaches its prime around sixty years of age; and that it is intolerant of cold, both winter weather and low temperatures generally. The animal lives near rivers, but not in them. It does cross through water, but only advances as far as its trunk stays above the surface; for it blows air out through the trunk and breathes by means of it. It cannot really swim, because of the weight of its body. Camels will not mount their mothers, and even if someone forces the issue, they refuse. There was once a case where, no other male being available, the keeper covered the mother's face and let her own colt mount her; and when, after he had mounted her, the covering fell off, he did then complete the mating; but a little later he bit the camel-driver and killed him. It is also said that the king of the Scythians had a thoroughbred mare, from whom all his good horses were bred; wanting to breed from the best of these out of the mother herself, he brought the son to her so that he would mate with her, but the horse refused. When she was covered, however, he mounted her without realizing it. But when, after he had mated with her, the mare's face was uncovered, the horse, seeing it, fled and threw himself off a cliff.

85| Among sea creatures the most signs of gentleness and tameness are reported of dolphins, including cases of affection and desire toward boys, both around Tarentum and Caria and other places. In Caria, when a dolphin was caught and wounded, a great crowd of dolphins is said to have come all at once into the harbor and stayed until the fisherman released it; then they all departed together again. And one of the larger dolphins always accompanies the small ones, to guard them. A school of large and small dolphins together has actually been observed; two of them, falling not far behind the rest, were seen swimming under a small dead dolphin calf as it was being carried down into the depths, and lifting it up on their backs, as if out of pity, so that it would not be devoured by some other creature. Unbelievable things are also said about the speed of this creature; for it seems to be the swiftest of all animals, both of the water-dwellers and of the land-dwellers, and dolphins leap clear over the masts of large ships. This happens most of all when they are chasing some fish for food; for then, if it flees, they follow it down into the depths because of their hunger, and when the turn back up takes a long time, they hold their breath as if calculating it, and, drawing themselves together, they shoot up like an arrow, wanting to cover the distance by their speed in order to breathe, and they leap clear over the masts, if a ship happens to be nearby. Deep-sea divers do the same thing when they let themselves go down into the depths; for they too, according to their own strength, come back up by drawing themselves together. The males stay together with the females in pairs. It is a matter of puzzlement why they run themselves aground on land; for they are said to do this sometimes, as it happens, for no reason at all.

86| Just as it happens that all animals perform their actions according to their affections, so too, conversely, their characters change according to their actions, and often even some of their bodily parts change, as happens in the case of birds. For hens, when they defeat the males, crow in imitation of the males and attempt to mount, and their comb grows up and their tail-feathers too, so that it would not be easy to recognize that they are female; and in some of them small spurs even grow out. Some males, too, have been observed, when the female has died, taking on the female's role of caring for the chicks themselves, leading them about and rearing them, to the point that they no longer crow or attempt to mate. There are also some birds that are effeminate from birth, to such a degree that they even submit to males that try to mount them.

87| Some animals change not only in form and character according to age and season, but also when they are castrated. Every animal that has testicles can be castrated. Birds have their testicles inside, near the loins, as do the egg-laying quadrupeds; but the live-bearing land animals have them mostly outside, though some have them inside — in all cases, though, near the end of the belly. Birds are castrated at the rump, at the point where they come together when mating; for if one cauterizes it there with two or three irons, then, if the bird is already full-grown, its comb turns pale and it no longer crows or attempts to mate; and if it is still a chick, none of these changes happen at all as it grows up. The same holds for human beings: if one mutilates boys while they are still children, neither do the later-growing hairs appear nor does the voice change, but it stays high-pitched; but if they are already past puberty, the later-growing hairs fall away, except for those on the pubic region (these become fewer but remain), while the hairs present from birth do not fall away; for no eunuch goes bald. The voice also changes toward the female pattern in all castrated quadrupeds.

88| Other quadrupeds, if they are not castrated while young, are ruined by it; but with boars alone it makes no difference. In every case, if they are castrated young, they grow larger and more sleek than uncastrated animals; but if they are already fully formed, they no longer grow any further. As for deer, if they are castrated before they have yet grown horns because of their age, they never grow horns at all; but if one castrates them once they already have horns, the horns stay the same size and are not shed. Calves are castrated at one year old; otherwise they grow up uglier and smaller. Young bulls are castrated in this way: they lay the animal down, cut into the bottom of the scrotum, and squeeze out the testicles; then they push the roots back up as far as possible, and stuff the incision with hairs so that the discharge can flow out; and if it becomes inflamed, they cauterize the scrotum and dust it. If full-grown, uncastrated bulls are castrated, the effects show plainly. Female pigs also have their organ of desire cut out, so that they no longer need mating but fatten quickly. The sow is operated on after fasting for two days, when they hang her up by the hind legs. They cut the lower belly, at the point where the testicles chiefly grow in males; for it is there, attached to the womb, that the organ of desire grows, and they cut off a small piece of it and sew the wound back up.

89| Female camels, too, are spayed, when men want to use them for war, so that they will not become pregnant. Some peoples of the upper regions own as many as three thousand camels; and when they run, they run far faster than Nisaean horses, because of the length of their stride. In general, castrated animals grow taller than uncastrated ones. Animals benefit and take pleasure in this; and the ones that chew the cud do so as if they were eating. Animals that do not have teeth in both jaws chew the cud, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. Among wild animals this has not yet been observed in any that are not sometimes raised alongside domestic ones, such as the deer; and the deer does chew the cud. All of them chew the cud more when lying down. They chew the cud most in winter; animals kept at home do this for about seven months; but herd animals chew it less, and for a shorter time, because they graze outdoors. Some animals with teeth in both jaws also chew the cud, such as the Pontic mice, and certain fish, including one that some people call, from this very habit, the 'ruminant.' Long-legged animals have loose bowels, while broad-chested ones tend more to vomit, and this holds, for the most part, among quadrupeds, birds, and humans alike.

90| [chapter 49b] Many of the birds change both their color and their voice with the seasons — the blackbird, for instance, turns yellow instead of black, and its voice becomes different too: in summer it sings, but in winter it clatters and makes a noisy sound. The thrush also changes color: in winter it has a dusky look, but in summer the feathers around its neck become mottled; its voice, however, does not change at all. The nightingale sings continuously for fifteen days and nights once the mountain is already thick with foliage; after this it still sings, but no longer continuously. As summer goes on it puts forth a different note, no longer of every kind, nor harsh and wavering, but simple, and it changes its color, and in Italy at least it is called by a different name around this season. It appears for only a short time, since it goes into hiding. The robins and the birds called redstarts also change into one another: the robin is the winter form, the redstarts the summer form, and they differ from one another, one might say, in nothing except color alone. The same holds for the fig-peckers and the blackcaps, for these too change into one another.

91| The fig-pecker appears around the time of late summer fruit, the blackcap immediately after autumn. These too differ from one another in nothing except color and voice. That it is the same bird has already been observed, each of these two kinds caught in the process of the change, not yet having changed completely nor yet being in the other form. And it is nothing strange if in these cases the voices or the colors change, since the ring-dove too does not call at all in winter (except that once, when a fair spell came on after a violent winter, it did call, and this was marveled at by those with experience), but when spring comes, then it begins to call. And in general birds send forth the most calls, and the greatest variety of them, when they are about the time of mating. The cuckoo too changes color and does not make its call clearly when it is about to disappear; it disappears at the rising of the dog-star, and becomes visible starting from spring until the rising of the dog-star. Also the bird some call the wheatear disappears when Sirius rises, and appears when it sets; it flees now the cold, now the heat. The hoopoe too changes its color and its form, as Aeschylus has represented in these lines.

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