Translated by H.Rackham (1952), with some minor alterations. Click on the L symbols to go to the Latin text of each chapter.
{54.} L [111] The flight of these birds prompts one to turn to the consideration of the other birds as well. All the rest of the animals have one definite and uniform mode of progression peculiar to their particular kind, but birds alone travel in a variety of ways both on land and in the air. Some walk, as crows ; others hop, as sparrows and blackbirds ; run, as partridges and black grouse ; throw out their feet in front of them, as storks and cranes. Some spread their wings and at rare intervals let them droop and shake them ; others do so more frequently, but also only the tips of the wings ; others flap the whole of their sides ; [112] but there are some that fly with their wings for the greater part folded, and after giving one stroke, or others also a repeated stroke, are borne by the air: by as it were squeezing it tight between their wings, they shoot upward or horizontally or downward. Some you would think to be flung forward, or again in some cases to fall from a height and in other cases to leap upward. Only ducks and birds of the same kind soar up straight away, and move skyward from the start, and this even from water; and consequently they alone when they have fallen into the pits that we use for trapping wild animals get out again. [113] Vultures and the heavier birds in general cannot fly upward except after a run forward or when launching from a higher eminence ; they steer with their tail. Some birds turn their gaze round, others bend their necks ; and some eat things they have snatched with their feet. Many do not fly without a cry, others on the contrary are always silent when in flight. They move upward, downward, slanting, sideways, straight forward, and some even with the head bent backward ; consequently if several kinds are seen at the same time, they might be thought not to be travelling in the same element.
{55.} L [114] The greatest flyers are the species resembling swallows called apodes (because they lack the use of feet) and by others 'cypseli.' They build their nests on crags. These are the birds seen all over the sea, and ships never go away from land on so long or so unbroken a course that they do not have apodes flying round them. All the other kinds alight and perch, but these never rest except on the nest : they either hover or lie on a surface.
{56.} L [115] Birds' dispositions also are equally varied, especially in respect of food. Those called goat suckers, which resemble a rather large blackbird, are night thieves - for they cannot see in the daytime. They enter the shepherds' stalls and fly to the goats' udders in order to suck their milk, which injures the udder and makes it perish, and the goats they have milked in this way gradually go blind. There is a bird called the shoveller-duck which flies up to the sea-divers and seizes their heads in its bill till it wrings their catch from them. The same bird after filling itself by swallowing shells brings them up again when digested by the warmth of the belly and so picked out from them the edible parts, discarding the shells.
{57.} L [116] Farmyard hens actually have a religious ritual : after laying an egg they begin to shiver and shake, and purify themselves by circling round, and make use of a straw as a ceremonial rod to cleanse themselves and the eggs. The smallest of birds, the goldfinches, perform their leader's orders, not only with their song but by using their feet and beak instead of hands. One bird in the Arelate district, called the bull-bird although really it is small in size, imitates the bellowing of oxen. Also the bird whose Greek name is 'flower,' when driven away from feeding on grass by the arrival of horses, imitates their neighing, in this way taking its revenge.
{58.} L [117] Above all, birds imitate the human voice, parrots indeed actually talking. India sends us this bird ; its local name is siptaces ; its whole body is green, only varied by a red circlet at the neck. It greets its masters, and repeats words given to it, being particularly sportive over the wine. Its head is as hard as its beak ; and when it is being taught to speak it is beaten on the head with an iron rod - otherwise it does not feel blows. When it alights from flight it lands on its beak, and it leans on this and so reduces its weight for the weakness of its feet.
{59.} L [118] A certain kind of magpie is less celebrated, because it does not come from a distance, but it talks more articulately. These birds get fond of uttering particular words, and not only learn them but love them, and secretly ponder them with careful reflexion, not concealing their engrossment. It is an established fact that if the difficulty of a word beats them this causes their death, and that their memory fails them unless they hear the same word repeatedly, and when they are at a loss for a word they cheer up wonderfully if in the meantime they hear it spoken. Their shape is unusual, though not beautiful : this bird has enough distinction in its power of imitating the human voice. [119] But they say that none of them can go on learning except ones of the species that feeds on acorns, and among these those with five claws on the feet learn more easily, and not even they themselves except in the two first years of their life. All the birds in each kind that imitate human speech have exceptionally broad tongues, although this occurs in almost all species ; [120] Claudius Caesar's consort Agrippina had a thrush that mimicked what people said, which was unprecedented. At the time when I was recording these cases, the young princes { ? Britannicus and Nero } had a starling and also nightingales that were actually trained to talk Greek and Latin, and moreover practised diligently and spoke new phrases every day, in still longer sentences. Birds are taught to talk in private and where no other utterance can interrupt, with the trainer sitting by them to keep on repeating the words he wants retained, and coaxing them with morsels of food.
{60.} L [121] Let us also repay to the ravens the gratitude that is their due, evidenced also by the indignation and not only by the knowledge of the Roman nation. When Tiberius was emperor, a young raven from a brood hatched on the top of the Temple of Castor and Pollux flew down to a cobbler's shop in the vicinity, being also commended to the master of the establishment by religion. It soon picked up the habit of talking, and every morning used to fly off to the rostra that faces the forum and salute Tiberius and then Germanicus and Drusus Caesar by name, and next the Roman public passing by, afterwards returning to the shop ; and it became remarkable by several years' constant performance of this function. [122] This bird the tenant of the next cobbler's shop killed, whether because of his neighbour's competition or in a sudden outburst of anger, as he tried to make out, because some dirt had fallen on his stock of shoes from its droppings ; this caused such a disturbance among the public that the man was first driven out of the district and later actually made away with, and the bird's funeral was celebrated with a vast crowd of followers, the draped bier being carried on the shoulders of two Ethiopians and in front of it going in procession a flute-player and all kinds of wreaths right to the pyre, which had been erected on the right hand side of the Appian Way at the second milestone on the ground called Campus Rediculi. [123] So adequate a justification did the Roman nation consider a bird's cleverness to be for a funeral procession and for the punishment of a Roman citizen, in the city in which many leading men had had no obsequies at all, while the death of Scipio Aemilianus after he had destroyed Carthage and Numantia had not been avenged by a single person. The date of this was 28 March, in the consulship of Marcus Servilius and Gaius Cestius { 35 A.D. }. [124] At the present day also there was in the city of Rome at the time when I was publishing this book a crow belonging to a Roman knight, that came from Baetica, and was remarkable in the first place for its very black colour and then for uttering sentences of several words and frequently learning still more words in addition. Also there was recently a report of one Crates surnamed Monoceros in the district of Eriza in Asia hunting with the aid of ravens, to such an extent that he used to carry them down into the forests perched on the crest of his helmet and on his shoulders ; the birds used to track out and drive the game, the practice being carried to such a point that even wild ravens followed him in this way when he left the forest. [125] Certain persons have thought it worth recording that a raven was seen during a drought dropping stones into a monumental urn in which some rain water still remained but so that the bird was unable to reach it ; in this way as it was afraid to go down into the urn, the bird by piling up stones in the manner described raised the water high enough to supply itself with a drink.
{61.} L [126] Nor will I pass by the birds of Diomedes. Juba calls them Plungers-birds, also reporting that they have teeth, and that their eyes are of a fiery red colour but the rest of them bright white. He states that they always have two leaders, one of whom leads the column and the other brings up the rear ; that they hollow out trenches with their beaks and then roof them over with lattice and cover this with the earth that they have previously dug from the trenches, and in these they hatch their eggs ; that the trenches of all of them have two doors, that by which they go out to forage facing east and that by which they return west ; and that when about to relieve themselves they always fly upwards and against the wind. [127] These birds are commonly seen in only one place in the whole world, in the island which we spoke of { 3.151 } as famous for the tomb and shrine of Diomedes, off the coast of Apulia, and they resemble coots. Barbarian visitors they beset with loud screaming, and they pay deference only to Greeks, a remarkable distinction, as if paying this tribute to the race of Diomedes ; and every day they wash and purify the temple mentioned by filling their throats with water and wetting their wings, which is the source of the legend that the comrades of Diomedes were transformed into the likeness of these birds.
{62.} L [128] In a discussion of mental faculties it must not be omitted that among birds swallows and among land animals mice are unteachable, whereas elephants execute orders and lions are yoked to chariots, and in the sea seals and ever so many kinds of fish can be tamed.
{63.} L [129] Birds of the kinds that have long necks drink by suction, stopping now and then and so to speak pouring the water into themselves by bending their head back. Only the porphyrio drinks by beakfuls ; it also eats in a peculiar way of its own, continually dipping all its food in water and then using its foot as a hand with which to bring it to its beak. The most admired variety of this bird is in Commagene; this has a red beak and very long red legs.
{64.} L [130] The long-legged plover has the same, a much smaller bird although with equally long legs. It is born in Egypt. It stands on three toes of each foot. Its food consists chiefly of flies. When brought to Italy it lives only for a few days.
{65.} L All the heavier birds feed also on grain, but the scaring species on flesh only, and so among aquatic birds the cormorants, who regularly devour what the rest disgorge.
{66.} L [131] Pelicans have a resemblance to swans, and would be thought not to differ from them at all were it not that they have a kind of second stomach in their actual throats. Into this the insatiable creature stows everything, so that its capacity is marvellous. Afterwards when it has done plundering it gradually returns the things from this pouch into its mouth and passes them into the true stomach like a ruminant animal. These birds come to us from the extreme north of Gaul.
{67.} L [132] We have been told of strange kinds of other birds in the Hercynian Forest of Germany whose feathers shine like fires at night-time ; but in the other forests nothing noteworthy occurs beyond the notoriety caused by remoteness. The most celebrated water-bird in Parthian Seleucia and in Asia is the phalaris-duck, the most celebrated bird in Colchis the pheasant - it droops and raises its two feathered ears - and in the Numidian part of Africa the Numidic fowl ; all of these are now found in Italy.
{68.} L [133] Apicius, the most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts, established the view that the flamingo's tongue has a specially fine flavour. The francolin of Ionia is extremely famous. Normally it is vocal, though when caught it keeps silent. It was once considered one of the rare birds, but now it also occurs in Gaul and Spain. It is even caught in the neighbourhood of the Alps, where also cormorants occur, a bird specially belonging to the Balearic Islands, as the chough, black with a yellow beak, and the particularly tasty willow-grouse belong to the Alps. The latter gets its name of 'hare-foot' from its feet which are tufted like a hare's, though the rest of it is bright white ; it is the size of a pigeon. [134] Outside that region it is not easy to keep it, as it does not grow tame in its habits and very quickly loses flesh. There is also another bird with the same name that only differs from quails in size, yellow-coloured, very acceptable for the table. Egnatius Calvinus, governor of the Alps, has stated that also the ibis, which properly belongs to Egypt, has been seen by him in that region.
{69.} L [135] There also came into Italy during the battles of the civil war round Bedriacum north of the Po the 'new birds' - for so they are still called - which are like thrushes in appearance and a little smaller than pigeons in size, and which have an agreeable flavour. The Balearic Islands send the porphyrio, an even more splendid bird than the one mentioned above. In those islands the buzzard of the hawk family is also in repute for the table, and the vipio as well - that is their name for the smaller crane.
{70.} L [136] The pegasus bird with a horse's head and the griffin with ears and a terrible hooked beak - the former said to be found in Scythia and the latter in Ethiopia - I judge to be fabulous ; and for my own part I think the same about the bearded eagle attested by a number of people, a bird larger than an eagle, having curved horns on the temples, in colour a rusty red, except that its head is purple-red. Nor should the sirens obtain credit, although Dinon the father of the celebrated authority Clitarchus declares that they exist in India and that they charm people with their song and then when they are sunk in a heavy sleep tear them in pieces. [137] Anybody who would believe that sort of thing would also assuredly not deny that snakes by licking the ears of the augur Melampus gave him the power to understand the language of birds, or the story handed down by Democritus, who mentions birds from a mixture of whose blood a snake is born, whoever eats which will understand the conversations of birds, and the things that he records about one crested lark in particular, as even without these stories life is involved in enormous uncertainty with respect to auguries. [138] Homer mentions a kind of bird called the scops ; many people speak of its comic dancing movements when it is watching for its prey, but I cannot easily grasp these in my mind, nor are the birds themselves now known. Consequently a discussion of admitted facts will be more profitable.
{71.} L [139] The people of Delos began the practice of fattening hens, which has given rise to the pestilential fashion of gorging fat poultry basted with its own gravy. I find this first singled out in the old interdicts dealing with feasts as early as the law of the consul Gaius Fannius eleven years before the Third Punic War { 161 B.C. }, prohibiting the serving of any bird course beside a single hen that had not been fattened - a provision that was subsequently renewed and went on through all our sumptuary legislation. [140] And a way round so as to evade them was discovered, that of feeding male chickens also with foodstuffs soaked in milk, a method that makes them esteemed as much more acceptable. As for hens, they are not all chosen for fattening, and not unless they have fat skin on the neck. Subsequently came elaborate methods of dressing fowls, so as to display the haunches, so as to split them along the back, so as to make them fill the dishes by spreading them out from one foot. Even the Parthians bestowed their fashions on our cooks. And nevertheless with all this showing off, no entire dish finds favour, only the haunch or in other cases the breast being esteemed.
{72.} L [141] Aviaries with cages containing all kinds of birds were first set up by Marcus Laenius Strabo of the equestrian order at Brundisium. From him began our practice of imprisoning within bars living creatures to which Nature had assigned the open sky. Nevertheless the most remarkable instance in this record is the dish belonging to the tragic actor Clodius Aesopus, rated at the value of 100,000 sestertii, in which he served birds that sang some particular song or talked with human speech, which he acquired at the price of 6000 sestertii apiece, [142] led by no other attraction except the desire to indulge in a sort of cannibalism in eating these birds, and not even showing any respect for that lavish fortune of his, even though won by his voice - in fact a worthy father of a son whom we have spoken of as swallowing pearls, though not so much so as to make me wish to give a true decision in the competition in baseness between the two, unless in so far as it is a smaller thing to have dined on the most bounteous resources of Nature than on the tongues of men.
{73.} L [143] The reproductive system of birds appears to be simple, although even this possesses marvels of its own, since even four-footed creatures produce eggs - chameleons and lizards and those we have specified among aquatic species, and also snakes. But among feathered creatures those that have hooked talons are infertile. Of these only the lesser kestrel produces more than four eggs at a time. Nature has bestowed on the bird kind the attribute that the species among them that are shy are more prolific than the brave ones ; only ostriches, hens and partridges bear very numerous broods. Birds have two methods of coupling, the hen sitting on the ground as in the case of the domestic fowl or standing up as in the case of the crane.
{74.} L [144] The eggs are in some cases white, as with the dove and partridge, in others pale-coloured, as with waterfowl, in others spotted, as those of the guinea-hen, in others of a red colour, as in the case of the pheasant and the lesser kestrel. The inside of every bird's egg is of two colours ; in that of the aquatic birds there is more yellow than white, and that yellow is brighter than with the other species. Fishes' eggs are of one colour, which contains no bright white. [145] Birds' eggs are made easily breakable by heat, snakes' eggs are made flexible by cold, and fishes' eggs are softened by liquid. Aquatic species have round eggs, but almost all others oval-shaped ones. They are laid with their roundest part in front, the shell of whatever portions they emerge with being soft but becoming hard immediately after the process. Long-shaped eggs are thought by Horatius Flaccus to have a more agreeable flavour. Eggs of a rounder formation produce a hen chicken and the rest a cock. The navel in eggs is at the top end, projecting like a speck in the shell.
[146] Some birds mate in any season, for instance the domestic fowl, and lay, except in the two midwinter months. Of these kinds the young hens lay more eggs than the old, but smaller ones, and in the same brood those laid first and last are the smallest. But they are so fertile that some even lay eggs sixty times, some lay daily, some twice daily, some so much that they die of exhaustion. [147] Adria birds are most highly spoken of. Pigeons lay ten times a year, some even eleven times, while in Egypt they even lay in a midwinter month. Swallows and blackbirds and wood-pigeons and turtle-doves lay twice a year, all other birds as a rule only once. Thrushes build their nests of mud in an almost continuous mass on the tops of trees, and breed in retirement. The eggs grow to full size in the uterus in ten days from pairing, but in the case of the domestic fowl and the pigeon, if the hen is disturbed by having a feather torn out or by some similar damage, it takes longer. [148] In all eggs the middle of the yolk contains a small drop of a sort of blood, which people think is the heart of birds, supposing that the heart is the first part that is produced in every body : in an egg undoubtedly this drop beats and throbs. The animal itself is formed out of the white of the egg, but its food is in the yolk. In all cases at the beginning the head is larger than the whole body, and the eyes, which are pressed together, are larger than the head. As the chick grows in size the white turns to the middle and the yolk spreads round it. [149] If on the twentieth day the egg be moved, the voice of the chick already alive is heard inside the shell. At the same time it begins to grow feathers, its posture being such that it has its head above its right foot but its right wing above its head. The yolk gradually disappears. All birds are born feet first, the opposite way to the remaining animals. [150] Some domestic hens lay all their eggs in pairs, and according to Cornelius Celsus occasionally hatch twin chicks, one larger than the other ; though some assert that twin chicks are never hatched out. They lay down a rule that the hen should not be required to sit on more than 25 eggs at a time. Hens begin to lay at midwinter, and breed best before the spring equinox : chickens born after midsummer do not attain the proper size, and the later they are hatched the more they fall short of it.
{75.} L [151] It pays best for eggs to be sat on within ten days of laying ; older or fresher ones are infertile. An odd number should be put under the hen. If three days after they began to be sat on the top of the eggs held in the tips of the fingers against the light shows a transparent colour of a single hue, the eggs are judged to be barren. and others should be substituted for them. They may also be tested in water : an empty egg floats, and consequently people prefer eggs that sink, that is, are full, to put under the hens. But they warn against their being tested by shaking, on the ground that if the vital veins are displaced the eggs are sterile. [152] The ninth day after a new moon is assigned for starting a hens sitting, as eggs begun earlier do not hatch out. The chicks are hatched more quickly when the days are warm, and consequently eggs will hatch out in 18 days in summer but 24 in winter. If it thunders while the hen is sitting the eggs die, and if she hears the cry of a hawk they go bad. A remedy against thunder is an iron nail placed under the straw in which the eggs lie, or some earth from the plough. [153] In some cases Nature hatches of her own accord even without the hen sitting, as on the dunghills of Egypt. We find a clever story about a certain toper at Syracuse, that he used to go on drinking for as long a time as it would take for eggs covered with earth to produce a hatch.
{76.} L [154] Moreover eggs can be hatched even by a human being. Julia Augusta in her early womanhood was with child with Tiberius Caesar by Nero, and being specially eager to a bear a baby of the male sex she employed the following method of prognostication used by girls - she cherished an egg in her bosom and when she had to lay it aside passed it to a nurse under the folds of their dresses, so that the warmth might not be interrupted ; and it is said that her prognostication came true. It was perhaps from this that the method was lately invented of placing eggs in chaff in a warm place and cherishing them with a moderate fire, with somebody to keep turning them over, with the result that all the live brood breaks the shell at once on a fixed day. [155] It is recorded that a certain poultry-keeper had a scientific method of telling which egg was from which hen. It is related also that when a hen has died the cocks of the farmyard have been seen taking on her duties in turn and generally behaving in the manner of a broody hen, and abstaining from crowing. Above all things is the behaviour of a hen when ducks' eggs have been put under her and have hatched out - first her surprise when she does not quite recognise her brood, then her puzzled sobs as she anxiously calls them to her, and finally her lamentations round the margin of the pond when the chicks under the guidance of instinct take to the water.
{77.} L [156] Marks of good breeding in hens are upstanding comb, which is occasionally double, black feathers, red beak, and uneven claws, sometimes one lying actually across the four others. Fowls with yellow beak and feet seem not to be unblemished for purposes of religion, and black ones for the mystery rites. Even the dwarf variety is not sterile in the case of the domestic fowl, which is not the case in any other breeds of birds, though with the dwarf fowl reliability in laying is unusual, and sitting on the eggs is harmful to the hen.
{78.} L But the worst enemy of every kind is the pip, and especially between the time of harvest and vintage. [157] The cure is in hunger, and they must lie in smoke, at all events if it be produced from bay-leaves or savin, a feather being inserted right through the nostrils and shifted daily ; diet garlic mixed with spelt, either steeped in water in which an owl has been dipped or else boiled with white vine seed, and certain other substances.
{79.} L [158] Pigeons go through a special ceremony of kissing before mating. They usually lay two eggs at a time, nature so regulating as to make some produce larger chicks and others more numerous. The wood-pigeon and the turtle-dove lay at most three eggs at a time, and never more than twice in a spring, and keeping a rule that, if the former lay goes bad, even although they lay three eggs they never rear more than two chicks ; the third egg, which is infertile, they call a wind-egg. The hen Wood-pigeon sits from noon till the next morning and the cock the rest of the time. [159] Pigeons always lay a male and a female egg, the male first and the female a day later. In this species both birds sit, the cock in the daytime and the hen at night. They hatch in about three weeks, and they lay four days after mating. In summer indeed they sometimes produce three pairs of chickens every two months, for they hatch on the 17th day and breed immediately ; consequently eggs are often found among the chickens, and some are beginning to fly just when others are breaking the egg. Then the chicks themselves begin laying when five months old. [160] However in the absence of a cock hen birds actually mate with one another indifferently, and produce unfertile eggs from which nothing is produced, which the Greeks call wind-eggs.
[161] The peahen begins to lay when three months old. In the first year it lays one egg or a second one, but in the following year four or five at a time, and in the remaining years twelve at a time, but not more, with intervals of two or three days between the eggs, and three times in the year, provided that the eggs are put under farmyard hens to sit on. The male peacock breaks the eggs, out of desire for the female sitting on them ; consequently the hen bird lays at night, and in hiding or when perching on a high place - and unless the eggs are caught on a bed of straw they are broken. One cock can serve five hens, and when there have been only one or two hens for each cock their fertility is spoiled by its salaciousness. The chickens are hatched in 27 days or at latest on the 29th.
[162] Geese mate in the water ; they lay in spring, or if they mated in midwinter, after midsummer ; they lay nearly 40 eggs, twice in a year if the hens turn the first brood out of the nest, otherwise sixteen eggs at the most and seven at the fewest. If somebody removes the eggs, they go on laying till they burst. They do not turn strange eggs out of the nest. [163] It pays best to put nine or eleven eggs for them to sit on. The hens sit only 30 days at a time, or if the days are rather warm, 25. The touch of a nettle is fatal to goslings, and not less so is their greediness, sometimes owing to their excessive gorging and sometimes owing to their own violence, when they have caught hold of a root in their beak and in their repeated attempts to tear it off break their own necks before they succeed. A nettle-root put under their straw after they have lain in it is a cure for nettle-sting.
[164] There are three kinds of heron, the white, the speckled and the dark. These birds suffer pain , in mating, indeed the cocks give loud screams and even shed blood from their eyes ; and the broody hens lay their eggs with equal difficulty. [165] The eagle sits on her eggs for thirty days at a time, and so do the larger birds for the most part, but the smaller ones, for instance the kite and hawk, sit for twenty days. A kite's brood usually numbers two chicks, never more than three, that of the bird called the merlin as many as four, and the raven's occasionally even five ; they sit for the same number of days. The hen crow is fed by the cock while sitting. The magpie's brood numbers nine, the blackcap's over twenty and always an odd number, and no other bird has a larger brood : so much more prolific are the small species. A swallow's first chicks are blind, as are those of almost all species that have a comparatively large brood.
{80.} L [166] Infertile eggs, which we have designated wind-eggs, are conceived by the hen birds mating together in a pretence of sexual intercourse, or else from dust, and not only by hen pigeons but also by farmyard hens, partridges, peahens, geese and ducks. But these eggs are sterile, and of smaller size and less agreeable flavour, and more watery. Some people think they are actually generated by the wind, for which reason they are also called Zephyr's eggs ; but wind-eggs are only produced in spring, when the hens have left off sitting : another name for them is addle-eggs. [167] When steeped in vinegar eggs become so much softer that they can be passed through rings. It pays best to keep them in bean meal, or else chaff in winter and bran in summer ; it is believed that keeping them in salt drains them quite empty.
{81.} L [168] The only viviparous creature that flies is the bat, which actually has membranes like wings ; it is also the only flyer that nourishes its young with milk, bringing them to its teats. It bears twins, and flits about with its children in its arms, carrying them with it. The bat is said to have a single hip-bone. Gnats are its favourite fodder.
{82.} L [169] On the other hand among land animals, the snake is oviparous ; we have not yet described this species. Snakes mate by embracing, intertwining so closely that they could be taken to be a single animal with two heads. The male viper inserts its head into the female viper's mouth, and the female is so enraptured with pleasure that she gnaws it off. [170] The viper is the only land animal that bears eggs inside it ; they are of one colour and soft like fishes' roe. After two days she hatches the young inside her uterus, and then bears them at the rate of one a day, to the number of about twenty ; the consequence is that the remaining ones get so tired of the delay that they burst open their mother's sides, so committing matricide. All the other kinds of snakes incubate their eggs in a clutch on the ground, and hatch out the young in the following year. Crocodiles take turns to incubate, male and female.
But let us give an account of the mode of reproduction of the remaining land animals as well.
{83.} L [171] Man is the only viviparous biped. Man is the only animal with which mating for the first time is followed by repugnance, which is doubtless an augury of life as sprung from regrettable source. All the other animals have fixed seasons of the year for mating, but man, as has been said { 7.38 }, mates at every hour of the day and night. All the others experience satiety in coupling, but with man this is almost entirely absent. [172] Claudius Caesar's consort Messalina, thinking that this would be a truly regal triumph, selected for a competition in it a certain maidservant who was the most notorious of the professional prostitutes, and beat her in a twenty-four hours' match, with a score of twenty-five. In the human race the males have devised every out-of-the-way form of sexual indulgence, crimes against nature, but the females have invented abortion. How much more guilty are we in this department than the wild animals ! Hesiod has stated { Op_586 } that men have stronger sexual appetites in winter and women in summer.
[173] Species with the genital organs behind them, elephants, camels, tigers, lynxes, the rhinoceros, the lion, the hairy-footed and the common rabbit couple back to back. Camels even make for deserts or else places certain to be secret, and one is not allowed to interrupt them without disaster; the coupling lasts a whole day, and this is the case with these alone of all animals. With the solid-hooved species in the quadruped class the males are excited by scenting the female. Also dogs, seals and wolves turn away in the middle of coupling and still remain coupled against their will. [174] Among the above-mentioned species, of hares the females usually cover first, but with all the others the males ; but bears, as was said, couple, like human beings, lying down, hedgehogs both standing up and embracing each other, cats with the male standing and the female lying beneath it, foxes lying down on their sides and the female embracing the male. Cows and does resent the violence of the bulls and stags, and consequently walk forward in pairing. Stags pass across to other hinds and return to the former ones alternately. Lizards like the creatures without feet practise intercourse by intertwining.
[175] All animals are less fertile the larger they are in bulk. Elephants, camels and horses produce offspring one at a time, but the thistle-finch, the smallest of birds, twelve at a time. Those that produce most young bear them most quickly ; the larger the animal, the longer it takes to be shaped in the womb ; the more long-lived ones are carried longer by the mother. Also animals are not of an age suitable for procreation while they are still growing. [176] Solid-hoofed animals bear one child at a time, those with cloven hooves also bear two, but those whose feet are divided into separate toes also produce a larger number. But whereas all those above bear their offspring fully formed, these produce them unfinished - in this class being lionesses and bears ; and a fox bears its young in an even more unfinished state than the species above-mentioned, and it is rare to see one in the act of giving birth. Afterwards all these species warm their offspring and shape them by licking them. Their litters number four at the most. [177] Dogs, wolves, panthers and jackals bear their young blind.
There are several kinds of dogs. The Spartan hounds breed when both sexes are seven months old; the bitches carry for 60 days, and 63 at most. The bitches of the other breeds are willing to couple, even when six months old. They all conceive from a single coupling. Those that are bred from before the proper time have puppies that stay blind longer, and all of them for the same number of days. They are believed to raise the leg in making water when about six months old ; this is a sign of fully matured strength. Bitches relieve themselves sitting. [178] The most prolific have litters of twelve, but usually they have five or six, and sometimes only one : this is considered portentous, as are litters that are all males or all females. Male puppies are born first in each litter, whereas in all other animals the sexes come in turns. Bitches couple five months after their last litter. The Spartan hounds have litters of eight. The males of that breed are marked by keenness for work. Spartan dog hounds live ten years, bitches twelve ; all the other breeds live fifteen years, sometimes even twenty. But they do not breed all their lives, ceasing usually at the age of twelve.
[179] The cat and the mongoose resemble dogs in other respects, but their length of life is ten years. Rabbits breed in every month of the year, and superfetate, as do hares ; after giving birth they pair again at once. They conceive although still suckling their previous litter, but the young are blind. Elephants, as we have said { 8.28 }, bear one young one at a time, of the size of a three months old calf. Camels carry their young twelve months ; they begin breeding at the age of three, in the spring, and mate again a year after giving birth. [180] Mares on the other hand are believed not to be profitably sired till three years old, and not before a year after their last foaling ; when they are unwilling, compulsion is used. It is believed that she-asses conceive quite easily even a week after delivery. It is said that mares' manes ought to be clipped to make them submit to allow coupling with asses, as having long manes makes them proud and high-spirited. Mares are the only animals that after coupling run in a northerly or southerly direction according as they have conceived a male or a female foal. Immediately afterwards they change the colour of their coat for a deeper red or a darker hue of whatever their colour is : this marks their ceasing to be able to couple, even if willing to do so. Some are not hindered from work by foaling, and are in foal without its being known. We find it on record that a mare in foal belonging to a Thessalian named Echecratides won a race at Olympia. [181] It is stated by exceptionally careful authorities that horses, dogs and swine like mating in the morning, but that the females make approaches in the afternoon ; that mares that have been broken are in heat 60 days sooner than those running with the herd ; that swine only foam at the mouth when mating ; that when a boar-pig has heard a sow in heat grunting it refuses food to the point of losing flesh entirely unless it is admitted to her, while sows get so fierce that they will gore a human being, especially one wearing white clothes. This madness can be reduced by sprinkling the organs with vinegar. [182] It is believed that desire for mating is also stimulated by articles of diet, for instance rocket in the case of a man and onions in the case of cattle. It is a remarkable fact that wild species when domesticated refuse to breed, for instance wild geese, and wild boars and stags do so reluctantly and only if they have been reared from infancy. Female animals refuse intercourse when pregnant, except the mare and the sow ; but only the common rabbit and the hairy-footed rabbit allow superfetation.
{84.} L [183] All viviparous species produce their young head foremost, the embryo turning round shortly before delivery, but otherwise lying stretched at length in the womb. Four-footed species are carried with the legs stretched out to full length and folded against their own belly, but the human embryo curled up in a ball, with the nostrils placed between the two knees. [184] It is thought that moon calves, about which we have spoken before { 7.63 }, are produced when a woman has conceived not from a male but from herself alone, and that they do not come alive because they are not produced from two parents, and they possess the self-nourishing vitality that belongs to plants and trees. Of all the species bearing fully developed offspring pigs alone have litters that are numerous as well as developed, for it is against the nature of those with solid or cloven hoofs to produce several young.
{85.} L [185] The most prolific of all animals whatever is the mouse - one hesitates to state its fertility, even though on the authority of Aristotle and the troops of Alexander the Great. It is stated that with it impregnation takes place by licking and not by coupling. There is a record of 120 being born from a single mother, and in Persia of mice already pregnant being found in the parent's womb ; and it is believed that they are made pregnant by tasting salt. [186] Accordingly it ceases to be surprising how so large an army of field-mice ravages the crops ; and in the case of field-mice it is also hitherto unknown exactly how this vast multitude is suddenly destroyed: for they are never found dead, and nobody exists who ever dug up a mouse in a field in winter. Vast numbers thus appear in the Troad, and they have by now banished the inhabitants from that country. They appear during droughts. It is also related that when a mouse is going to die a worm grows in its head. The mice in Egypt have hard hair like hedgehogs, and also they walk on two feet, as also do the Alpine mice. - [187] When animals of a different kind pair, the union is only fertile when the two species have the same period of gestation. - There is a popular belief that of the oviparous quadrupeds the lizard bears through the mouth, but this is denied by Aristotle. Lizards do not hatch their eggs, but forget where they laid them, as this animal has no memory ; and consequently the young ones break the shell without assistance.
{86.} L [188] We have it from many authorities that a snake may be born from the spinal marrow of a human being. For a number of animals spring from some hidden and secret source, even in the quadruped class, for instance salamanders, a creature shaped like a lizard, covered with spots, never appearing except in great rains and disappearing in fine weather. It is so chilly that it puts out fire by its contact, in the same way as ice does. It vomits from its mouth a milky slaver, one touch of which on any part of the human body causes all the hair to drop off, and the portion touched changes its colour and breaks out in a rash.
{87.} L [189] Consequently some creatures are born from parents that themselves were not born and were without any similar origin, like the ones mentioned above and all those that are produced by the spring and a fixed season of the year. Some of these are infertile, for instance the salamander, and in these there is no male or female, as also there is no sex in eels and all the species that are neither viviparous nor oviparous ; also oysters and the other creatures clinging to the bottom of shallow water or to rocks are neuters. [190] But self-generated creatures if divided into males and females do produce an offspring by coupling, but it is imperfect and unlike the parent and not productive in its turn : for instance flies produce maggots. This is shown more clearly by the nature of the creatures called insects, all of which are difficult to describe and must be discussed in a work devoted specially to them. Consequently the psychology of the aforesaid creatures, and the remainder of the discussion, must be appended.
{88.} L [191] Among the senses, that of touch in man ranks before all the other species, and taste next; but in the remaining senses he is surpassed by many other creatures. Eagles have clearer sight, vultures a keener sense of smell, moles acuter hearing - although they are buried in the earth, so dense and deaf an element of nature, and although moreover all sound travels upward, they can overhear people talking, and it is actually said that if you speak about them they understand and run away. [192] Among men, when one is first of all denied hearing he also is robbed of the power of talking, and there are no persons deaf from birth who are not also dumb. The sea-oyster probably has no sense of hearing ; but it is said that the razor-shell dives at a sound : consequently people fishing make a practice of silence. {89.} L [193] Fish indeed have no auditory organs or passages, but nevertheless it is obvious that they hear, inasmuch as it can be observed that in some fishponds wild fish have a habit of flocking together to be fed at the sound of clapping, and in the Emperor's aquarium the various kinds of fish come in answer to their names, or in some cases individual fish. Consequently it is also stated that the mullet, the wolf-fish, the stockfish and the chromis hear very clearly, and therefore live in shallow water.
{90.} L [194] It is clearly obvious that fish possess a sense of smell, as they are not all attracted by the same food, and they smell a thing before they seize it. Some fish even when hiding in caves are driven out by a fisherman who smears the mouth of the crag with brine used in pickling - they run away as it were from the recognition of their own dead body ; and they also flock together from the deep water to certain smells, for instance a burnt cuttle-fish or polypus, which are thrown into wicker creels for this purpose. Indeed the stench of a ship's bilge makes them flee far away, but most of all the blood of fishes. [195] The polypus cannot be dragged away from the bait ; but when a sprig of marjoram is brought near to it, it at once darts away from the scent. Purple-fish also can be caught by means of things with a foul smell. As to the rest of the animal class who could have any doubt ? Snakes are driven away by the stench of burnt stag's horn, but especially by that of styrax-tree gum ; the scent of marjoram or lime or sulphur kills ants. Gnats seek for sour things and are not attracted by sweet things.
All creatures have the sense of touch, even those that have none of the others ; it is possessed even by molluscs, and also, among land animals, by worms. {91.} L [196] I am inclined to believe that all possess the sense of taste also ; for why are different species attracted by different flavours ? In the matter of taste nature's handicraft is outstanding : some creatures catch their prey with their teeth, others with their claws, others snatch their food with the curve of the beak, others root it up with the flat of the beak, others dig it out with the point ; some suck it in, others lick it, sup it up, chew it, gulp it down. Nor is there less variety in the service rendered by their feet, in snatching, tearing asunder, holding, squeezing, hanging, or incessantly scratching the earth.
{92.} L [197] Wild goats and quails, the most peaceful of creatures, grow fat, as we have said, on poisons, but snakes batten on eggs, serpents having a remarkably skilful trick - they either gulp the eggs down whole, if their throats have grown large enough to hold them, and then break them inside them by rolling themselves up in a coil, and so cough out the bits of eggshell, or if they are young snakes as yet of too tender an age, they catch hold of the eggs in the ring of their coil and squeeze them so gradually and forcibly that part is cut off as if with a knife from the remainder which is held in their folds and then they suck it in. In a like manner they swallow birds whole and then with a heave bring up again the feathers and the bones.
{93.} L [198] Scorpions live on earth. Snakes are specially fond of wine when they have the chance, though otherwise they need little drink ; they also need very little food, and almost none at all when they are kept shut up ; just as do spiders also, which otherwise live by suction. Consequently no venomous creature dies of hunger or thirst ; for they have neither heat nor blood, nor yet sweat, which increases appetite by its natural salt. All in this class are more deadly if they have eaten their own kind before they attack somebody. [199] The class of dog-headed apes and orang-utans stores food in the recesses of the jaw-bones, and then gradually takes it out from there with its hands to chew it - and what with ants is an annual ceremony is for these a daily or hourly practice. The only animal with toes that lives on grass is the hare ; solid-hoofed animals live on grass and corn, and among animals with cloven feet the pig eats all kinds of fodder and also roots. Rolling on the ground is peculiar to animals with solid hooves. All species with serrated teeth are carnivorous. Bears also eat grain, leaves, grapes and fruits and bees, and even crabs and ants. [200] Wolves, as we have said, when hungry even eat earth. Cattle grow fat with drinking, and consequently salt is specially suitable for them. So also do beasts of burden, although they also fatten on corn and grass ; in fact they eat in proportion to what they have drunk. Beside the ruminants already mentioned, of forest animals stags ruminate when they are kept by us ; but they all ruminate lying down in preference to standing, and in winter more than in summer, for a period of about seven months. The mice of Pontus also remasticate their food in a similar manner.
{94.} L [201] In drinking, animals with serrated teeth lap, and so does our common mouse, though it really belongs to another class ; those with teeth that touch suck, for instance horses and cattle ; bears do neither, but gulp water as well as food in bites. In Africa the greater part of the wild animals do not drink at all in summer, owing to lack of rains for which reason Libyan mice in captivity die if given drink. The perpetually dry parts of Africa produce the antelope, which owing to the nature of the region goes without drink in quite a remarkable fashion, for the assistance of thirsty people, as the Gaetulian brigands rely on their help to keep going, bladders containing extremely healthy liquid being found in their body.
[202] In Africa also leopards crouch in the thick foliage of the trees and hidden by their boughs leap down on to animals passing by, and stalk their prey from the perches of birds. Then how silently and with what a light tread do cats creep up to birds ! how stealthily they watch their chance to leap out on tiny mice ! They scrape up the earth to bury their droppings, realising that the smell of these gives them away. {95.} L [203] Consequently it is easily manifest that there are also certain senses other than those mentioned above.
For animals have certain kinds of warfare and of friendships, and the feelings that result from them, besides the various facts that we have stated about each species in their places. There are quarrels between swans and eagles ; between the raven and the golden oriole when searching for one another's eggs by night ; similarly between the raven and the kite when the former snatches the latter's food before he can get it ; between crows and owls, the eagle and the gold-crest - if we can believe it, as the eagle is called the king of birds ; between owls and the other smaller birds ; [204] again birds with land animals - the weasel and the crow, the turtle-dove and the pyrallis, ichneumon-flies and spiders ; the water-birds brenthos and gull and goshawk and buzzard ; shrew-mice and herons lying in wait for each other's young ; that very tiny bird the titmouse with the ass, which by rubbing itself against thorns for the sake of scratching dislodges the nests of the titmouse, which is so scared that when it merely hears the sound of an ass braying it throws its eggs out of the nest, and the chicks themselves in fear fall out, and consequently the bird flies at the ass and hollows out its sores with its beak ; foxes and kites ; snakes and weasels and pigs. [205] There is a small bird called the aesalon that breaks a raven's eggs, whose chicks are preyed upon by foxes, and it retaliates by pecking the fox-cubs and the vixen herself; when the ravens see this they come to their aid against the aesalon as against a common foe. Also the gold-finch lives in thorn-bushes and consequently it also hates asses that devour the flowers of the thorn ; but the yellow wagtail hates the titmouse so bitterly that people believe that their blood will not mix, and consequently they give it a bad name as used for many poisons. The thos and the lion quarrel. [206] Also the smallest animals quarrel as much as the largest : a tree infested with ants is hollowed out by caterpillars ; a spider swings by a thread on to the head of a snake stretched out beneath the shade of its tree, and nips its brain with its jaws so violently that it at once gives a hiss and whirls giddily round, but cannot even break the thread by which the spider hangs, much less get away, and there is no end to it before its death.
{96.} L [207] On the other hand friendships occur between peacocks and pigeons, turtle-doves and parrots, blackbirds and turtle-doves, the crow and between the little heron in a joint enmity against the fox kind and the goshawk and kite against the buzzard. Why, are there not signs of affection even in snakes, the most hostile kind of animals ? we have mentioned { 8.61 } the story that Arcadia tells about the snake that saved his master's life and recognised him by his voice. [208] Let us place to the credit of Phylarchus a marvellous tale about an asp : he relates that in Egypt, when it used to come regularly to be fed at someone's table, it was delivered of young ones, and that its hosts's son was killed by one of these ; and that when the mother came back for its usual meal it realised the young one's guilt and killed it, and never came back to the house again afterwards.
{97.} L [209] The question of sleep does not involve any obscure conjecture. It is clear that among land animals all those that close the eyes sleep. That also water animals sleep at all events a little is held even by those who doubt about the other kinds ; they do not infer this from the eyes, as these creatures have no eyelids, but merely by their quietness : they are seen reposing as if sunk in slumber, and only moving their tails, and waking up in alarm at any disturbance. [210] It is affirmed with more confidence about tunny-fish, because they sleep close to banks or rocks ; while flatfish sleep in shallow water, so that they are often taken out by hand. Dolphins and whales, in fact, are heard actually snoring. That insects also sleep is shown by their silence, and by their not even being roused by having lights brought near them.
{98.} L [211] Man when born is beset by sleep for some months, and then day by day his waking period gets longer. An infant begins to dream at once, for it wakes up in a fright, and also imitates sucking. But some children never dream, and with these we find instances in which their dreaming contrary to their usual habit was a sign of approaching death. Here an important topic invites us and one fully supplied with arguments on both sides - whether there are certain cases of foreknowledge present in the mind during repose, and what causes them, or whether it is a matter of chance like most things. If the question be argued by instances, these would doubtless be found to be equal on both sides. It is practically agreed that dreams occurring directly after drinking wine and eating food, and those that come in dozing off to sleep a second time, are false; but sleep is really nothing but the retirement of the mind into its innermost self. [212] It is manifest that, beside human beings, horses, dogs, oxen, sheep and goats dream ; it is consequently believed that, dreams also occur in all viviparous species. As to the oviparous creatures it is uncertain, but it is certain that they sleep.
But let us also pass to insects, for these remain, creatures of immeasurably minute structure.
Book 11 →
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